Latest news with #digital revolution
National Post
5 days ago
- Politics
- National Post
Ian Bremmer: The death of the internet as a democratizing force a harbinger of the death of democracy
Technology was supposed to scatter power. Early internet visionaries hoped that the digital revolution would empower individuals to break free from ignorance, poverty and tyranny. And, for a while at least, it did. But today, ever-smarter algorithms are learning to predict — and shape — our every choice, enabling unprecedentedly effective forms of centralized, unaccountable surveillance and control. The coming AI revolution may even render closed political systems more stable than open ones — where transparency, pluralism, checks and balances, and other key democratic features could prove liabilities in an age of exponential change. If openness long gave democracies their edge, could it be their undoing tomorrow? Article content Article content Two decades ago I sketched the 'J-curve,' which links a country's openness to its stability: mature democracies are stable because they are open, consolidated autocracies are stable because they are closed and countries stuck in the messy middle tend to crack under stress. Article content Article content Article content Article content But this relationship isn't static; it's shaped by technology. Back then, the world was riding a decentralizing telecommunications and internet revolution that connected people everywhere and armed them with more information than they'd ever had access to before, tipping the scales toward citizens and open political systems. From the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union to the colour revolutions in eastern Europe and the Arab Spring in the Middle East, global liberalization appeared inexorable. Article content That momentum has since slammed into reverse. The decentralizing information and communications technology revolution gave way to a centralizing data revolution built on network effects, digital surveillance and algorithmic nudging. Instead of diffusing power, this technology concentrated it, handing the small number of actors who control the largest datasets — whether governments or technology companies — the ability to shape what billions see, do and believe. Article content Article content As citizens were turned from principal agents to objects of technological filters and data collection, closed systems gained ground. And so, the gains made by the colour revolutions and the Arab Spring were reversed. Hungary and Turkey have muzzled their free press and politicized their independent judiciaries. Chinese President Xi Jinping has consolidated power and reversed two decades of Chinese economic opening. Most dramatically, the United States has turned from the world's leading exporter of democracy — however inconsistently and hypocritically — to the leading exporter of the tools that undermine it. Article content Article content The explosion of artificial intelligence capabilities is about to supercharge these trends. Models trained on our individual private data will soon 'know' us better than we know ourselves, programming humans faster than we can program them and transferring even more power to the handful of actors who control the data and algorithms.
Finextra
04-08-2025
- Business
- Finextra
What's next in wealth? Exploring European trends & priorities
What's driving the shift toward hybrid advisory models in European wealth management? Are organisations moving fast enough to keep pace with the tech-driven innovation in the financial sector and the opportunities it offers? What operating model changes are required to modernise legacy private banking infrastructure? How can firms deliver differentiated experiences to digital-native HNW clients without losing personal touch? What is the real ROI of AI in portfolio management? How are European wealth managers navigating ESG complexity when building advisory offerings across jurisdictions? Over are the days of homogeneity in wealth management, today's investors expect the same personalised, digital convenience in wealth that they get with fintechs and big tech. In fact, PwC finds that 72% of asset and wealth managers expect disruptive tech to shift consumer preference toward tech-enabled solutions. So how are European asset and wealth managers keeping pace with the digital revolution taking place in the space? And are they moving fast enough to garner favourability with the new generation of investors, which are expected to inherit an estimated at US$68 trillion over the next decade? Increased competition through fintechs as well as growing regulatory complexity (e.g., through MiFID III and ESG mandates) add further pressure on organisations. So, what are the digital priorities for European wealth managers in 2025 and beyond? How can organisations create scalable, digital, compliant platform strategies to cater to a growing audience of digital-natives? And what is the real ROI of AI in portfolio management? Register for this Finextra webinar, hosted in association with Temenos, to join our panel of industry experts who will discuss the key trends and priorities of European wealth managers, and how organisations can create scalable, digital wealth journeys to serve the next generation of investors.
