The Fragile Sea Newsletter TFS #02

Welcome!

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This is the second newsletter for The Fragile Sea, again a warm welcome!

I have not cured the length issue yet! Bear with me, there was much on offer to discover these past two weeks, and I was excited to journey through it all.

Quickreads

• First up, In AI, dev, comms, I think I have an idea why OpenAi CEO Sam Altman is looking for up to $7trn in investment to boost the world’s chip capacity for AI-related infrastructure. It has multiple strands and I try to make it short. It reaches back to a 2017 paper on neuroscience-inspired AI, but we’ll come to that presently.
• In Biotech, a quick pass by genetically modified food, and a survey in Europe showing a lack of knowledge, and maybe, a lack of interest, though wanting to know more. None of it is necessarily bad, just interesting.
• In Air, food, water, another look at food production from the point of view of the small farmer, who is barely making a living.
• A slightly extended piece about freshwater and the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region.
• In Energy, new research on grid hazard zones and geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) in infrastructure.
• In Media and social, Nic Newman at the Reuters Institute (Oxford) releases his annual ‘Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2024’, one of the best sources in this area I have read in a good while. Things aren’t great in traditional media, and honking in social, and the creator economy.
• We touch on Counterstrike gaming, and research on screen time and game time.
• In the world’s great ‘zines, I wax lyrical, or try to, on three profound pieces of writing in the past, and then move on to my love affair with the IEEE Spectrum ‘zine, and some amazing articles on robotics, and a host of other subjects.
• Continuing in ‘zines, we look at Apple Pro Vision, from various points of view. It’s an evolutionary step forward but very pricey at $3,500, and meant for early testers, I guess.
• In Psych, some incredible discoveries in neuroscience, published in February, that seem to support comments reported earlier in the newsletter on AI investment.
• We also look briefly at a thing called privacy fatigue, that is, ‘emotional exhaustion and cynicism toward privacy, which leads to a lack of privacy-protective behavior’. A second paper looks at emotion socialization, and the ability to understand and regulate one’s emotions. I learn a lot of new things.
• In the Groves of academe, we look at three heart-warming new papers on love, the benefits of dance, and the link between romance and friendships during adolescence.
• Around the houses touches briefly on a wide range of new papers from corporates and investment houses, and Around the halls passes by the same from institutions, BIS, ECB, IMF, The Federal Reserve, and others.
• I wrap up in Things that go wow, and What’s coming up, and finish with a short Kokinshū poem.
• TFS#03 will be out on Thursday, 29^th February (a leap year!) at 8:00pm, UTC

That should keep us going for two weeks!

Let's go!

AI, Devtech, Comms

Sam Altman's $7trn funding ask

I was puzzling this week with all the buzz around OpenAi CEO Sam Altman’s search for up to $7trn in investment to boost the world’s chip capacity for AI-related infrastructure, as widely reported [1]. Particularly when Mark Zuckerberg, on an earnings call, apparently said that the first key requirement to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI), was to build a “world-class compute infrastructure”, again widely reported; Sharon Goldman has a good piece on VentureBeat [2].

I think I know why Altman is looking for that sum (though it’s probably obvious), but I have a more obscure view which is a bit convoluted, I hope I can shorten it. But first, AGI. Nick Bostrom, founding director of the Oxford Future of Humanity Institute, has written extensively on superintelligence, a form of AGI he defined in 1998 as “an intellect that is much smarter than the best human brains in practically every field, including scientific creativity, general wisdom and social skills” [3], a theme he has continued in other papers, and in his popular book ‘Superintelligence’ [4], almost 20 years later (2017).

Let's get emotional

Let’s go the long way around on this one, and start with emotions. Lisa Feldman Barrett, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Northeastern University, in her outstanding book, ‘How Emotions are made - the secret life of the brain’ [5], succinctly debunks the traditional view that human emotions have unique ’fingerprints’, tied to specific neurons and locations in the brain. Her theory of constructed emotions, and a lifetime of work in the field, point to no specific fingerprints, indeed, she shows how humans construct emotions at the time, for example, anger, with different sets of neurons firing each time. An emotion, such as ‘anger’, is not a generic state, using the same infrastructure and firing at the same levels, but is constructed at the time. Different groups of neurons, or ‘intrinsic networks’, fire differently each time, sometimes not at all.

Chapter Four is where it starts to get luminous. She defines interoception as our brain’s “representation of all the sensations from your internal organs and tissues, the hormones in your blood, and your immune system” (Ibid, p. 56.) These are sensations we can sense internally. This is a well-known area of science, controversial in many ways, and stuck for some time, it seems, on heart beats and little else. Prof. Barrett takes it further, though. Knowledge of the world comes in from external sources through our senses, and interoception, working together. Sometimes, there can be little or no external sensory inputs, like in deep sleep, but that’s not to say neurons aren’t still firing, and many of them.

Micro-predictions about reality

Echoing Jean Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality [6], elaborated in his book ‘Simulacra and Simulation’ [7], in essence, we create symbolic representations of the world, and then test them through micro-predictions about external reality, every micro-second, anticipating in advance, before being conscious of what the next action or occurrence might be. There is evidence that we make decisions prior to being conscious of making them, but often thinking we have made them consciously. Our brain is ahead of our conscious awareness.

Prof. Barrett writes that our brains are never inactive, “awaiting a jump-start… our neurons are always stimulating each other, sometimes millions at a time... these huge cascades of stimulation, known as intrinsic brain activity, continue from birth until death” (Ibid., p. 58). She writes that intrinsic networks (in the brain) are considered “one of neuroscience’s great discoveries of the last decade”.

So, we construct a symbolic representation of reality in our brain, from experience, and then make micro-predictions, testing them in the real world, tweaking errors as they often arise. Indeed, errors are necessary to inform whether our micro-predictions are correct or not. Scientists believe this is our primary mode of consciousness. But the neat thing is, as Prof. Barrett writes, if the brain predicts perfectly, the visual input carries no new information any further in the brain - it doesn't need to. This is how the brain can navigate a vast torrent of data from the world, make sense of it, and live in it, in a hyper-efficient mode of cognition, perhaps the only way we can navigate and make sense of the world as it is.

OK, so let that settle a bit. Let’s move to the next part of the journey.

Parameters and synaptic connections

GPT4 has reportedly around 1.7 trillion ‘parameters.’ So, what is a parameter? Tim Keary has a good explanation on Techopedia [8].  In essence, parameters are variables that reach their optimised value through iterative training from the chosen dataset. Hyper-parameters are configured by humans to define how to train the parameters. Overfitting can happen, it is an optimisation process to find a balance between generalisation and specialisation. GPT3.5 has 175bn parameters, so GPT4, with a reported 1.7trn, was a magnitude leap forward.

The brain has around 86bn neurons and over 100trn synaptic connections. While we can’t directly compare a parameter with a synaptic connection [9], [10], nevertheless, the synaptic target of 100trn may be a goal, if, along the path to that number, consciousness may arise (more below).

Now for the third part: GPT5 is rumoured to be in training, up to ten times more powerful than GPT4, but not likely to be released for some time yet. That is another magnitude leap forward. If GPT4 has 1.7bn reported parameters, then GPT5 is getting awfully close to human synaptic connection magnitude., maybe exceeding it.

The clues are great to read, almost like being on the trail of the lost ark. Yash Bhaskar, writing on Medium, has an article ‘GPT5 : Everything we know about it’ [11], and Dr Alan D. Thompson has a provocative blog - three articles that caught my eye, I will leave here for the reader to enjoy [12], [13], [14].

Where does that leave us?

All the above motivate several avenues of thought. First, as the models become smarter, they may not need large amounts of data. Who needs, for example, 50 textbooks on the same subject, when a smaller amount of high-quality data will work better? We will see below why they do, in fact, need to handle vast amounts of data, just not in the same way as presented here.

Second, we might only need to do the expensive training once, with smaller updates.

Third, graphics cards and compute are enormously expensive, so AGI could potentially be achieved by focusing on a few very large models, not an army. How about 3 acres of a single sentience in one data warehouse? We could all book a visit to the 9^th wonder of the world.

Fourth, and this is where we start to track back to the start, new graphics hardware and compute seem likely to get the models up to 60-80trn parameters, which is approaching, as above, a not entirely similar comparison to human synaptic connections. It is rumoured that GPT5 reaches the higher end of that target, though unconfirmed. If that is the case, as we noted above, the practical target no longer seems unreachable in a few short years, not decades.

Consciousness and the unknown boundary

Two final pieces to the puzzle. Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA helix, was also active in many other areas of science, consciousness being one of them. In his book ‘The Astonishing Hypothesis’ [15], he maintained that it was just a matter of reaching a threshold in compute, in essence, enough synaptic connections (whatever that number might be) and consciousness would arise naturally, without the need for a soul. That is the astonishing hypothesis. I’m not sure I stretch that far, but it’s a relevant contribution, and I return to his book quite often.

In a similar vein, is an older paper (2017), that wins my award for the best source this newsletter, and is in my top 20 papers of all time. Demis Hassabis, CEO, and co-founder of DeepMind, wrote the paper with colleagues in 2017, entitled ‘Neuroscience-Inspired Artificial Intelligence’. It is a classic masterpiece of referencing and layout, but also an astonishing look at what needs to be achieved in AI, to come anywhere near human capability, stating “of course from a practical standpoint of building an AI system, we need not slavishly enforce adherence to biological plausibility. From an engineering perspective, what works is ultimately all that matters” [16]. I return quite often to this paper also, in a sense, to see how we are getting on.

And for final insight, a couple of video channels. Matthew Berman runs a helpful YT channel on AI. Two weeks ago he narrated a speech by Sam Altman interviewed by Axios in Davos - it’s a wonderous thing to watch, and a somewhat teasing 35mins: ‘Sam Altman Just Revealed NEW DETAILS About GPT-5 In Spicy Interview’ [17]. Two weeks ago also, AI Explained put out ‘GPT-5: Everything You Need to Know So Far’ - a good 20 mins of everything they have found out so far about GPT5 [18].

"World-class compute"

So, to Mark Zuckerberg’s comment about the need for ‘world class compute’, we need to look at chip making first. ASML, a single Dutch company with a very large collaborative supply chain, is a critical single source of some of the specialised tech needed to create chips for the AI future [19]. And, as Ann O’Dea writes in Silicon Republic, quoting Chris Miller’s book ‘The Chip War’ [20] “roughly 90pc of the world’s most advanced processors can only be made by one company in one country – Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company” [21]. Taiwan is the manufacturing hub for Nvidia chips [22]. The chip war and the future of AI are indeed inextricably linked.

In terms of US chip manufacture, it may be some years before benefits for AI will come to fruition; US domestic manufacture collapsed from 37% in 1990 to 10% today [23] [24], and even now, not producing the most advanced. Brookings Institute provides an excellent overview of regional innovation and micro-chip infrastructure investment in the Midwest [25]. Given the reported delays and concerns [26], [27], it’s good to find a comprehensive, up to date overview, including examination of what’s needed to move it on.

So, what does it all mean?

Now, let us bring it all together. What am I saying? Well, large language models are subject to knowledge cutoff, which defines the limit of their understanding and knowledge past a certain date, whatever that date is, in each model. Then training begins, but the model is effectively unaware of any new data after that date [28].

Remember how Prof. Barrett wrote of our unlimited micro-prediction capabilities? - taking in vast amounts of data every moment, constantly perceiving, generating, and predicting a construct of reality, and then tweaking that, to align our symbolic creation of reality with the reality we experience?

If we are ever to achieve AGI in machines, we will need real-time processing capability instantaneously, to that level and depth. The scale of compute is enormous, and geopolitics is a factor. Is it any wonder then, that Sam Altman is looking for $7trn?

Time to move on.

Science, Biology, Envirotech

GM Foods

In October 2023, the European Food Safety Authority published an FAQ on criteria to assess risk for plants produced by “targeted mutagenesis, cisgenesis and intragenesis” [29]. This is on foot of several papers and other public-facing communications on the subject [30].

It sounds scary but here are the definitions from their FAQ:

Targeted mutagenesis is an umbrella term used to describe techniques that induce specific mutation (s) in selected target locations of the genome. The changes occur without inserting genetic material.

Cisgenesis refers to modifying the genetic material of an organism with a sequence from the same species or one closely related. The new sequence contains an exact copy of the sequence already present in the breeders’ gene pool,

Intragenesis refers to modifying the genetic material of an organism with a combination of different sequences from the same species or one closely related. The new sequence contains a re-arranged copy of sequences already present in the breeders’ gene pool.

I will write more about genetic modification and some of the advances in yield and resilience that humans have benefitted from, also some of the risks, later in the year. What surprised me was the results to this question from the FAQ:

Are EU citizens aware or concerned about the use of new genomic techniques in food production?

The FAQ response is: “Two recent EFSA surveys – a 2021 flash poll [31] and the 2022 Eurobarometer on food safety [32] – revealed low awareness of new genomic techniques among EU citizens”.

Apparently, only 8% of those ‘aware of the issue’ indicated it as one of their five main food safety concerns, but ‘what the possible risks are’ was identified as an important information gap, with two-thirds (69%) wishing to know more about it.

I don’t know, but all that doesn’t seem bad. Maybe it’s the least on our minds in a crazy world.

Emerging biotech

Elsewhere, Forbes has a great article about ‘18 New And Emerging Biotech Developments Everyone Should Know About’ [33]. One of the items was an announcement by Google and Harvard in 2021 that they had mapped a 1-millionth section of the human brain, taking up 1.4 petabytes of disk space [34]. Thoughts of Sam Altman’s $7trn flash through my mind.

Two sources wrap up the biotech advances of 2023 [35], [36], while two others scope out expected biotech advances for 2024 [37], [38]. One gets a sense that biotech is crackling along rather well in the new year.

Air, Food, Water

Food

Industrial farms don’t produce all the world’s food. According to the Guardian in 2019, of the more than 570m farms worldwide, more than 90% are run by an individual or family, and they produce 80% of the world’s food [39].

But that was 2019; many farmers are aging without replacement, and barely make a living [40], [41]. Tragically, suicide among farmers is way above any comparative industry metric [42], [43], [44], [45]. These are shocking, bitter facts of rural life. One way or another, we are going to have to pay more for our food, and attract young people back to the land.

As soils become more degraded (estimated in 2022 at 40% moderately or severely degraded [46]), and fertiliser shortages become more acute, [47], [48], I try to find the good news stories in agriculture and agtech to cheer me up.

As it happens, there are some great innovations in Ag. Robotics are huge, from fruit picking, to weeders, to seeders [49]. Other innovations abound in AI, drones, and Ag Biotech, crop and soil analytics, and other areas, equally as important [50].

I don’t have answers, maybe we are hoping that we won’t need farming, but the ‘plant-based fails’ in synthetic meats, for example, don’t make that thought a promising outlook [51], [52].

I mentioned in TFS#01 the fabulous story of the Netherlands, which is the second largest exporter of food in the world, and with that being produced from a small relative land mass. It is a really amazing story, in the Washington Post by Laura Reiley, with photography and video by Kadir van Lohuizen/NOOR [53]. That would cheer anyone up, but any way I look at it, I can’t see a complete solution without us ensuring, somehow, that small farmers get paid more for what they do.

Water

Eos is a magazine that publishes a wide range of science subjects. I was interested in a recent article by Mikaël Attal on a method to calculate how fast the hills at the front of the Himalaya are eroding, based on the concentration of rare elements in river sands [54]. Why is this important, or even remotely interesting?

It connects for me with a 2020 report published under Creative Commons by Wester et al., on the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region: “Extending 3500 km over 8 countries, from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar in the east and crossing Pakistan, India, China, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh, the HKH is one of the world’s greatest mountain systems. The HKH forms the largest area of permanent ice cover outside of the North and South Poles (sometimes called the ‘third pole’)”  [55].

Sharma et al. (2019) notes that “the region provides ecosystem services (e.g., water, food, energy) that directly sustain the livelihoods of 240 million people in the mountain and hills of the HKH. Nearly 1.9 billion people living in the 10 river basins benefit directly and indirectly from its resources, while more than 3 billion people enjoy the food produced in its river basins” [56].

‘Assess HKH’ note that the Himalaya is drained by 19 major rivers, of which the Indus (3,180 km), Ganga (2,071 km) and the Brahmaputra (2,580 km) are the most important. All three originate in Tibet [57]. Not forgetting, of course, the Mekong (5,000 km): “As the river flows through Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar (and China), deterioration in the system would represent a significant issue afflicting Southeast Asia as a whole” [58], [59].

The  International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), headquartered in Lalitpur, in the Kathmandu valley of Nepal, issued a report in 2023 saying 80% of the glacial waters will be gone by 2100 [60]. That seems a long time away.

According to scientists, long before then, retreating HKH ice fields will radically alter the delicate balance between the region’s natural environment, human habitats, and food and energy security [61]. In addition, researchers studying Mother Ganges, have found bacteria with resistant genes even in the river’s first 100 miles [62].

Professor Syed Iqbal Hasnain, from the Energy and Resource Institute in New Delhi, writes that the Indus and Ganges currently have little outflow to the sea during the dry season, and that the surface area of glaciers in the Tibetan Plateau is projected to decrease from 500,000 square km, to 100,000 square km by 2030. That’s a significant change that will impact well over a billion humans. [63] Sometimes I wonder if we have grasped all this.

I’m interested primarily in freshwater. With the seeming increase in storms, there may be too much water in some places, of questionable quality, and not enough elsewhere, but the HKH system impacts a sizable portion of humans - over a quarter. The short-term impacts are the most important to focus on[64], [63].

Whenever I see an article or paper on freshwater, I think back to these references. Later this year I plan to write a few research notes on freshwater, desalination, aquifers, and other aspects of freshwater, a critical human need.

Energy, sun, space, physics, weather

Geomagnetically induced currents (GICs

American Geophysical Union (AGU) has a wealth of journals and papers, many open source, on a wide range of subjects [65]. In TFS#01, we discussed space weather and coronal mass ejections (CME) from the sun, which can lead to the induction of hazardous geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) in infrastructure. On Feb 1, in the Space Weather journal, AGU published two papers of interest ‘Mapping Geoelectric Field Hazards in Ireland’ [66], and ‘An Examination of Geomagnetic Induction in Submarine Cables’ [67].

On the former, the scientists did find locations more “prone to large geoelectric fields and hence more likely to generate large GICs”, and they created “the first geoelectric hazard map for Ireland”. That’s good news, maybe one country will start doing something about protecting the grid more. I will be writing some notes about space weather and grids later in the year.

On the latter paper, the writers note “Submarine cables carry a significant amount of international internet traffic, so any disruption to their operation could have widespread consequences”. Again, they did find that “geomagnetic disturbances induce electric fields in both the sea and in submarine cables”.

This connects back to a vast literature, for example, the ‘insidious’ risk to satellite navigation systems [68], and research on the earth’s radiation belts [69]. We need to do more about protecting our grids and infrastructure.

Renewables

In other energy sources of interest, Ember, the independent energy think tank based in London, has published the European Electricity Review 2024, noting in the 2023 year, a record 19% fall in fossil generation and CO₂ emissions and a record 44% share of renewables in the EU electricity mix, over 40% for the first time  [70].

Media, publishing, social, gaming

Annual media survey

About one of the best pieces I have read in this space for a while is this annual report: ‘Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2024’, by Nic Newman, released by the Reuters Institute at Oxford University on Jan 4^th this year [71], along with a 46-page pdf download. The author thanked “314 news leaders from 56 countries and territories, who responded to a survey around the key challenges and opportunities in the year ahead…. Respondents included 76 editors-in-chief, 65 CEOs or managing directors, and 53 heads of digital or innovation and came from some of the world’s leading traditional media companies as well as digital-born organisations.”

A transcript, where Federica Cherubini, Director of Leadership at the Institute, interviews Nic Newman, is also worth the time [72].

The report says just about everything I have come across on the state of journalism, media, publishing, search, online news, social media, and artificial intelligence.

It connected for me back to three books : ‘Merchants of Culture’ [73], ‘Book Wars’ [74], (both by the same author, John B. Thompson), and ‘The Oxford Handbook of Publishing’ (2021) [75], which are deep dives, analysing the digital media and social media impact on traditional publishing. The revolution, or disruption, has been going on for some time.

Counterstrike and other goodies

In gaming, I am grateful to my eldest son for keeping me up to date on Counter-Strike tournaments [76] and the irrepressible curation of games by fl0m [77] (don’t watch if swearing offends). He’s a one-off.

I don’t know if others see the same thing, but for every one or two sources on how bad screen time and texting before sleep is for teen sleep patterns [78], [79], and the prevalence of gaming ‘disorder’ syndromes [80], [81] (and I am not in any way discounting that these are real problems that some parents and children have to face and grapple with), I am seeing a significant amount of research on the benefits of gaming, in multiple ways [82], [83], [84], [85].

I know it may not be comfort to parents trying to engage their children in more ‘real-world’ activities, but maybe the research might be of some help.

Gaming and media tie-ins

Elsewhere, The Hollywood Reporter has a good in-depth article on Disney’s $1.5bn investment in Epic Games, maker of Fortnight, and chronicles Netflix’s acquisitions of a handful of indie game studios. The intellectual property tie-up between moving picture content (TV and Movies) and games fits with the ‘go where the kids are’ strategy that will be a strong attractor, I believe, in future metaverse-like worlds, fuelled by AI [86].

the ‘zines

The Atlantic. Occasionally one comes across writing that is so profound, even if it was written some years ago. William Langewiesche’s ‘A Sea Story’ about the sinking of the Estonia ferry in September 1994, written in 2004, is one such example [87]. The mini stories of individual chance, fate, luck, and calm purpose, in a capsizing and overturning ferry on storm seas, are so well written, one comes away with a whole new way of looking at life.

The New Yorker. Another example can be found in ‘The Really Big One’ written by Kathryn Schulz, and published in The New Yorker on July 2015, about the likelihood of an earthquake that could devastate the Pacific Northwest, but thankfully has not happened [88]. It’s a terrific piece of writing, particularly when she quotes the head of a local safety advisory office, counselling at a certain point to ‘run for your life’. It made me feel like running. That’s what good writing does, Schulz led me to that point, I was there, scared witless.

A third example is ‘Off Diamond Head’ by William Finnegan, published in The New Yorker in May 2015 [89]. (His book “Barbarian Days” won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for biography [90]). From the article, I connected with my early days in Northland, New Zealand, surfing at our local river bar break, ten miles down the road from our farm, endless, golden, summer days.

IEEE Spectrum Magazine. There are too many good articles in their monthly magazine, honestly, it makes my head explode! [91].

Let’s start with robotics and their weekly selection of awesome robot videos - there’s a lot of fun here [92], and here [93]. Or the Oslo, Norway company 1X, and their autonomous robots - the video in this article is wild [94]. Then there’s Disney’s newest robot that demonstrates ‘collaborative cuteness’ [95]. And what about the 34 labs teaming up to create a robotic brain? [96]. This connects with another article on the task of creating brain maps of connections, or ‘connectomes’, a non-trivial exercise  [97].

There are too many other good articles between late Dec 2023 and Feb 2024 alone - here are a selected few: ‘The Case for Nuclear Ships’ [98]; a discussion on whether to open source AI [99]; another on whether AI will disrupt peer-review in science or not [100]; A good short piece entitled  ‘Weighing the Prophecies of AI Doom’ [101]; ‘11 Intriguing Engineering Milestones To Look For In 2024’ [102]; and, ‘MIT and IBM are using AI to get around brute-force maths’ [103]. (Brute-forcing is a method of trying all possible solutions, sometimes achieving success in significantly less than the available solution space).

As I said in TFS#01, I am seriously addicted to Spectrum magazine!

MIT Technology Review. Food for thought in ‘10 Breakthrough Technologies 2024’, one being the first gene editing treatment [104]. Amy Nordrum picks up on another five that didn’t make the list of ten [105].

Vanity Fair. A ripper of an article by Nick Bilton, photography by Norman Jean Roy, on why Tim Cook is going all-in on Apple Vision Pro [106].

Wired. Lauren Goode writes a good article on ChatGPT being given a memory (‘reminding and remembering’) across multiple chats [107]. While it may be unnerving, it’s still not sentience.

Goode also co-writes an article with Michale Galore on the Apple Pro Vision - this is an examination of the ways Apple ‘envisions’ people interacting with each other while wearing the devices [108]. It comes with an external aluminium battery pack; I don’t see that as a show stopper - it looks pretty amazing [109], though there are some sour notes from recent, and earlier experiences [110], [111].

Jaron Lanier and Allison Stanger write about axing 26 words from the Communications Decency Act (Section 230) [112], that it could ‘save everything’. One learns something new every day.

Virginia Heffernan writes a fascinating story about Marina Hadjipateras, a general partner of the VC firm TMV, and Greek shipping heiress, ‘trying to transform the $14 trillion shipping industry’ [113]. Wow, so cool, I wish her every success.

Finally, for a hoot, six-word sci-fi stories written by readers, that become the property of Wired. There are some seriously good six-word artists out there! [114]. The next one is to write a six-word story about the first de-extincted woolly mammoth. Let’s see now: mammoth reborn, baby grows, adult devours. No, I need to work on it (I submitted it anyway).

Psych, philos, language, neuro, mind

Major breakthroughs this year

I wrote in TFS#01 that I sense there are going to be some major breakthroughs in neuroscience and consciousness in the next few years. It didn’t take long in the year. This goes straight back to the first subject in this newsletter, referencing Prof. Barrett’s work on how we create an internal construct of reality and then through micro-predictions, ‘test’ the world to see how close they both are, constantly tweaking the construct as we travel through our lived experiences.

A Massachusetts General Hospital study has discovered neurons in the human brain that can predict what we are going to say before we say it. They also found that there are separate groups of neurons in the brain dedicated to speaking and listening [115], [116]. A corollary is a separate study on “a neural probe (that) has been used to capture the activity of large populations of single neurons as people are speaking or listening, providing detailed insights into how the brain encodes specific features of speech [117] [118].

A further corollary is a Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology research team that has announced they have identified the principle by which musical instincts emerge from the human brain without special learning, using an artificial neural network model. This appears to be a cross-cultural phenomenon [119]. To that can be added a University of Exeter study that found playing an instrument is linked to better brain health in older adults [120].

Privacy fatigue?

On another subject area entirely, a study released in Nature has pointed to an interesting phenomenon, privacy fatigue: “The increasing use of social media platforms as personalized advertising channels is a double-edged sword. A high level of personalization on these platforms increases users’ sense of losing control over personal data: This could trigger the privacy fatigue phenomenon manifested in emotional exhaustion and cynicism toward privacy, which leads to a lack of privacy-protective behavior” [121].

It's not something I would have thought about, but makes sense when thinking about it. This is an interesting paper.

Another fascinating paper along similar lines: “Decoding the complexities of emotion socialization: cultures, individual features and shared information”.

“The ability to understand and regulate one’s emotions is an integral part of human development… Failures in emotion socialization have been associated with antisocial behavior, peer rejection, and mental health issues in both children and adults…” This paper references Prof. Barret’s work in constructed emotions mentioned earlier [122].

The Groves of Academe

All you need is love

Three very pleasant and thoughtful studies released in 2024 and written up in PsyPost by Eric Dolan, put a smile on one’s face: ‘The psychology of love: 10 groundbreaking insights into the science of relationships’ [123]; ‘Dancing to a healthier mind and body: The surprising psychological and cognitive benefits of structured dance’ [124]; and ‘New psychology research sheds light on the link between romance and friendships during adolescence’ [125].

Perhaps we leave the groves of academe in a warm place there, this newsletter.

Around the houses and corporates

Unless indicated otherwise, all sources are published in 2024. Company names in bold reflect the web source only - most companies have standard clauses that any opinions expressed on their web don't necessarily reflect the company views etc.

Since we did a deep dive on outlooks in TFS#01, this section will be brief this week.

Bank of America Securities. Claudio Irigoyen, Head of Global Economics, trots the globe in 5 questions. A good short analysis, particularly changes in manufacturing locations [126].

Blackrock Investments. The weekly commentaries are always interesting [127]. 

BNP Paribas must be chuffed, they won “eight prestigious accolades across ESG financing, Bonds, Loans, Equities, and Derivatives”, around innovation, to be awarded at the International Financing Review 2023 dinner, March 18^th, in London [128].

BNY Mellon. Nate Wuerffel gives a good account of the central clearing proposal for Treasuries by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which could have profound implications on how the Treasury market operates [129]. A download is available explaining how central clearing will reshape the market [130].

Goldman Sachs.  An upbeat article on capital markets and risk appetite [131], and another supporting US equities [132].

HSBC. Stephen King argues the pros and cons of cutting interest rates in an interesting podcast and summary transcript [133].

ING. God bless their soul. In their Feb 2024 Monthly, a bundle of 12 articles on ‘Reasons to be cheerful, Part 3’ [134]. In their FX Daily, Chris Turner and Frantisek Taborsky take a closer look at whether the late 2023 USD disinflation trend was real [135].

J.P. Morgan. The outlook for gold is discussed [136], as well as the impacts of the Red Sea shipping crisis [137].

KKR. A fascinating article on a wealth asset class that may have been overlooked [138].

Morgan Stanley. I always find their articles full of nutrients, such as ‘5 Unexpected Investment Ideas for 2024’ [139], ‘Geopolitical Events That Matter Most to Investors’ [140], and ‘Equity Markets 2024: 5 reasons to believe in the rally’ [141].

PIMCO. Tiffany Wilding and Allison Boxer discuss the Fed’s slow building confidence to cut interest rates [142].

UBS. A fascinating article discussing the move to edge devices for AI, and whether ChatGPT’s 1.8bn monthly users are driving this ‘next leg of growth’ [143].

Wells Fargo. Two very good articles on whether we should worry about debt or not [144], [145]. Elsewhere, two good economic analyses on the Eurozone, [146], and Australia and New Zealand [147].

Yahoo Finance. Eleanor Pringle, writing in the Sun, quotes Jamie Dimon, believing US Debt is the “most predictable crisis in history”, with other experts saying it could damage spending power and national security’ [148]. As I wrote in TFS#01, the global debt problem is not going away, we’re going to have to face it, and fix it.

Zurich. As a weekly snapshot, their reports are brief and incisive, not always in markets one is interested in, but for a two-pager, a good summary [149].

Around the halls

There are significant bodies of work, and interesting connections to be made here.

Bank for International Settlements (BIS). (Established in 1930, the BIS is owned by 63 central banks, representing countries accounting for around 95% of world GDP [150]).

In 2018, the BIS General Manager urged a clampdown on Bitcoin [151], and the BIS Annual Economic Report 2022 noted, “Structural flaws make the crypto universe unsuitable as the basis for a monetary system.”[152]. In fairness, the chapter in the report did note that “crypto offers a glimpse of potentially useful features that could enhance the capabilities of the current monetary system.” I take no view either side of this, but I find the dance fascinating.

In January 2023, BIS published a paper recommending an approach to ban, contain, or regulate crypto [153]. Maybe not before time, the fraud in plain sight was gut-wrenching to read about. Whether it had an effect or not, shortly afterwards, the banking onramps to crypto exchanges were severely curtailed [154]; some companies went to the wall for various reasons, access to fiat (normal currency) liquidity being one of them.

Concurrently though, it appears that BIS has not been idle in looking more closely at the space. Throughout 2023, a significant number of papers have been released on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) [155], Decentralised Finance [156], and a range of subjects, from threat modelling [157], to scalability and a resilience framework [158], anonymity for digital payments [159], and API prototypes for retail CBDC ecosystems [160].

That’s a dance. It continues globally with fascinating polemics from ‘crypto has no value’ (well seashells had no value, did they? does a ten dollar note hold value in itself? - value is imputed), to crypto being a valuable and useful innovation. (If many shareholders sold all their holdings in a company today, the imputed share value tomorrow would be much different than today, wouldn’t it?) Value is in the eye of the beholder, at the time of imputing that value. I’m not saying there is necessarily inherent value, but there seems to be quite a bit of utility and value

Over 53m smart contracts have been deployed on one blockchain (Ethereum), with over 90 million wallets, and 3000 or more tokens [161]. It’s not perfect, but that’s impressive. Smart contracts are explained here [162].

I guess the dance means writing off the space is an option sure, but there are other options. The scalability side of things is actually quite interesting, bearing in mind that, according to the Atlantic Council Tracker, 11 CBDCs have been launched around the world, 21 are in pilot [163], and Ledger Insights reported in late 2023 the ECB was calling for participants in a wholesale trial, whereas a digital dollar has all but stalled in the US [164].

Congressional Research Service CRS. The range of reports is staggering, a feast, in date order, here [165]. I have written a brief note about works from Marc Labonte [166], and his most recent works are here [167]. It is like a smorgasbord of subjects, a wonderful public resource. Essentially, take your pick from the latest research.

European Central Bank ECB. Of note, is the ECB’s Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) for the first quarter of 2024 [168], with Real GDP growth expectations revised downwards, along with longer term inflation. How to stimulate growth seems to be a big issue in Europe, on the other hand Greece can be rightly proud of being named The Economist country of the year, and Poland fared well too [169].

The European Parliamentary Research Service EPRS. The EPRS also issued a raft of papers over the year-end period, notable being Etienne Bassot’s ‘Ten issues to watch in 2024’, charting, among other issues, young Europeans going to the polls, the automotive sector in Europe, the US election, and India’s rise to great power status [170].

A significant piece of work also from Marcin Grajewski, gathering “recent publications and commentaries from many international think tanks on Russia’s war on Ukraine” - at least 35 global commentaries [171].

The Federal Reserve Bank. The 67 pages of ‘Research Staff Publications List 2022-2023’, believe it or not, is an astonishing collection of research on a vast range of subjects, from Economic History (e.g., ‘Access to Finance and Technological Innovation: Evidence from PreCivil War America’ (2023)), to econometrics, environmental, financial and international economics, and more [172].

The US Federal Reserve. A fascinating paper by Kevin Corinth and Jeff Larrimore, examining ‘Has Intergenerational Progress Stalled? Income Growth Over Five Generations of Americans’. Many may not agree with their findings, that “each of the past four generations of Americans was better off than the previous one… we also find that the higher educational costs incurred by younger generations is far outweighed by their lifetime income gains” [173].

IMF. Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva delivered remarks on crypto in a speech at the IMF International Conference on Digital Money December 14, 2023, Seoul, South Korea, that are worth the time.

Entitling her speech ‘Leaving the Wild West: Taming Crypto and Unleashing Blockchain’, she said, ”where might it go? Let’s look towards the future. We must consider the effects if crypto assets became widespread. The scenario is not farfetched. For one, crypto assets are not going away. Bitcoin is trading at its highest value since April 2022. The crypto market cap doubled over the last year. And still today people search for the word “Bitcoin” about 20 times more than “health and wellness,” and 7 times more than “climate change.. The challenge is that high crypto asset adoption could undermine macro-financial stability…” [174].

European Central Bank (ECB). A good working paper on trends in localised manufacturing:  “policymakers encouraging the local production of key inputs to reduce risks from excessive dependencies on foreign suppliers… focusing on the euro, area, we find that localisation policies are inflationary, imply transition costs and generally have a negative long-run effect on aggregate domestic output” [175]. Plenty to argue about.

Elsewhere, a good paper on ‘Households response to the wealth effects of inflation’ [176],

EU Parliament Research Service EPRS. An excellent paper on creating an integrated pan-European energy market [177]. Monika Dulian has put together a summary with links, a good snapshot of inputs.

Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Articles here always motivate some deep thinking. In Feb 2024, the following three articles on national debt are all worth a read: ‘What Is The National Debt Costing Us?’[178], ‘Any Way You Look At It, Interest Costs On The National Debt Will Soon Be At An All-Time High [179]’, and ‘Fed Chair Powell: It’s Past Time To Address Our National Debt’ [180].

U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Jenna Shrove and Lindsay Cates provide some myths and facts on Economic Mobility and Inequality [181]. I need to think about this more, I don’t think I am where they are.

Discussion

Well, yes, I know, I must work on the length of these newsletters, but there is so much happening that is exciting, I hope enthusiasm with discovery will conquer all!

I find these things bubble away in the background, and then a connection will suddenly surface in the mind, and I go back and look again.

It is truly amazing how much high-quality research and discovery emerges on a continuous basis. This is where I get most excited - the human brain cannot hope to retain all these things concurrently, but if we get AI right, it will be a massive help to humans, taking in all the many hundreds of years of knowledge and making it available in an instant. But there is much to get right first, and many early, emergent issues.

I wrote in TFS#01 that we can’t control technology with technology alone, that it must be a combination of technology, regulation, controls, and unceasing watchfulness. The solutions will not be perfect to start, they may never be. To me, clever humans have birthed a baby, now it must be brought up with manners, and, in future, surely, we will also have to create containment protocols for rogues (see below).

Things that go wow

I guess that’s what I mean by things that go wow! I think there’s been enough wow for this newsletter!

What’s coming up

Disinflation

I wrote that we would look at disinflation this newsletter, since the drumbeat is very strong, starting from around June 2023. One article by Jason Douglas in WSJ raised my interest: ‘In China, Deflation Tightens Its Grip’, noting that it “spells trouble for the global economy” [182]. That piqued my interest and from there, I started to see a consistent drumbeat that seems to be getting louder. I propose to discuss it next week, but these bells are hard to ignore [183], [184], [185], [186].

In the meantime, an excellent primer on what disinflation is, can be found here [187].

The rights of sentience?

Next newsletter, we will also commence a discussion on an area of AI that has long interested me, which is, if an AI achieves AGI, and humans acknowledge that it is sentient, what moral rights does it have to existence? Can we just turn it off?

Max Tegmark, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the president of the Future of Life Institute, and Nick Bostrom, founding director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, have long raised these issues in books such as ‘Life 3.0’ [188] (Tegmark) and ‘Superintelligence’ [4] (Bostrom), but also in many papers, articles and discussions. Others, also, have made major contributions to the discussion. Next newsletter, we begin to sort through the major claims, and the nuances.

More good stuff

We will also spend more time looking at the creator economy, meta-gaming, social, robotics, and chatbots.

TFS#03 will be out on Thursday, 29^th February (a leap year!) at 8:00pm, UTC.

Thank you for reading. I hope you can join me again, till then, take care!

Brent

Along the river

Drift scarlet leaves;

In the mountain heart

Snow-melt waters

Must be rising even now.

[189] KOKINSHŪ KKS VI: 320

Bye for now

Room 5000 - a short story I wrote in 1981 about a computer becoming sentient

TFS#09 - What do Neoliberalism, Friederich Hayek, markets, algorithms, AI, and creativity have in common? We delve into these subjects for more connections

TFS#08 - What are the correlations between growth, debt, inflation, and interest rates? In this business edition of The Fragile Sea, we go hunting in corporate, institutional, and academic papers for insights in the face of heightened political, economic, corporate, and environmental risks, and more besides!

TFS#07 - We discuss a mixing pot of subjects - the state of AI, will there be food shortages this summer? good things and not so in energy, pandemics - are we ready? some remarkable discoveries, and more!

TFS#06 - Can AI produce true creativity? We discuss music, art and creativity, why human creators have a strong future, and why we must assure that they do

TFS#05 - Practical guides for implementing AI, in other news, a revisit on CRISPR, and events in spaceweather, fake publishing, spring blossoms, and more!

TFS#04 - Has Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) arrived already? We look at the goings on in AI over the past four months

TFS#03 - AGI and machine sentience, copyright, developments in biotech, space weather, and much more 

TFS#02 - Sam Altman's $7trn request for investment in AI, economic outlooks, and happenings in biotech, robotics, psychology, and philosophy.

TFS#01 - Economic outlooks, and happenings in AI, social media, biotech, robotics, psychology, and philosophy.

AI 2024 Series

Part 1: Introduction / History of AI

Part 2: Technologies

Part 3: Commercial uses

Part 4: Neural architectures and sentience - coming soon!

Part 5: Meaning, Language, and Data

Part 6: Ethics, oversight and legal

Part 7: Media and social

Part 8: Future humanity

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[3]:         N. Bostrom, ‘How long before superintelligence?,‘ 1998. https://nickbostrom.com/superintelligence

[4]:         N. Bostrom, Superintelligence: paths, dangers, strategies, Reprinted with corrections 2017. Oxford, United Kingdom New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017.

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[17]:       Sam Altman Just Revealed NEW DETAILS About GPT-5 In Spicy 🌶️ Interview, (Jan. 23, 2024). [Video]:. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYg5Mz4_tf8.

[18]:       GPT-5: Everything You Need to Know So Far, (Jan. 26, 2024). [Video]:. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc03IYnnuIA.

[19]:       Neukölln and Veldhoven, ‘Does Europe at last have an answer to Silicon Valley?,‘ The Economist, Jan. 08, 2024. https://www.economist.com/business/2024/01/08/does-europe-at-last-have-an-answer-to-silicon-valley.

[20]:       C. Miller, Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology, 1^st edition. Simon & Schuster UK, 2023.

[21]:       A. O’Dea, ‘How the chip war and the future of AI are inextricably linked,‘ Silicon Republic, Sep. 25, 2023. https://www.siliconrepublic.com/future-human/chip-war-semiconductors-supply-tech-geopolitics-chris-miller

[22]:       J. Lewandowski, ‘Where are NVIDIA AI chips made?,‘ TechnoSpace2, Oct. 20, 2023. https://ts2.com.pl/en/where-are-nvidia-ai-chips-made/

[23]:       L. Mearian, ‘As US moves to regain microchip leadership, some say it never left | Computerworld,‘ Apr. 06, 2023. https://www.computerworld.com/article/3692888/as-us-moves-to-regain-microchip-leadership-some-say-it-never-lost-it.html

[24]:       S. Ravi, ‘Turning the Tide for Semiconductor Manufacturing in the U.S.,‘ Semiconductor Industry Association, Sep. 16, 2020. https://www.semiconductors.org/turning-the-tide-for-semiconductor-manufacturing-in-the-u-s/

[25]:       J. C. Austin and M. Muro, ‘CHIPS and Science Act programs are writing a new story about the Rust Belt,‘ Brookings, Feb. 07, 2024. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/chips-and-science-act-programs-are-writing-a-new-story-about-the-rust-belt/

[26]:       Mi. Sainato, ‘‘They would not listen to us’: inside Arizona’s troubled chip plant | Business | The Guardian,‘ Aug. 28, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/aug/28/phoenix-microchip-plant-biden-union-tsmc

[27]:       J. Zinkula, ‘TSMC’s Arizona plant is delayed over poor management, not a shortage of US skilled labor, the workers building it say,‘ Business Insider, Aug. 28, 2023. https://www.businessinsider.com/tsmc-phoenix-arizona-chip-factory-taiwan-semiconductor-management-safety-workers-2023-8

[28]:       Everyday AI, ‘Demystifying Knowledge Cutoff: Why it Matters for AI Models,‘ Nov. 01, 2023. https://www.toolify.ai/ai-news/demystifying-knowledge-cutoff-why-it-matters-for-ai-models-396770

[29]:       EFSA, ‘FAQ: Criteria for risk assessment of plants produced by targeted mutagenesis, cisgenesis and intragenesis | EFSA,‘ Oct. 18, 2023. https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/faq-criteria-risk-assessment-plants-produced-targeted-mutagenesis-cisgenesis-and-intragenesis

[30]:       EFSA, ‘New advances in biotechnology | EFSA,‘ May 25, 2023. https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/new-advances-biotechnology

[31]:       EFSA, ‘Survey Data on New Genomic Techniques  (Dataset).‘ Zenodo, Oct. 14, 2022. https://www.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7081944

[32]:       EFSA, ‘2022 Eurobarometer on Food Safety in the EU | EFSA,‘ Sep. 28, 2022. https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/corporate/pub/eurobarometer22

[33]:       Forbes Exper Panel, ‘Council Post: 18 New And Emerging Biotech Developments Everyone Should Know About,‘ Forbes, Oct. 03, 2023. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/10/03/18-new-and-emerging-biotech-developments-everyone-should-know-about/

[34]:       T. Blakeley and M. Januszewski, ‘A Browsable Petascale Reconstruction of the Human Cortex,‘ Jun. 01, 2021. https://blog.research.google/2021/06/a-browsable-petascale-reconstruction-of.html

[35]:       F. Wilkinson, ‘10 top biotechnology innovations 2023,‘ IN-PART, Feb. 28, 2023. https://in-part.com/blog/top-biotechnology-innovations/

[36]:       J. Adam, ‘Wrapping up 2023: A recap of top biotech moments of this year,‘ Labiotech.eu, Dec. 20, 2023. https://www.labiotech.eu/best-biotech/biotech-breakthroughs-2023/

[37]:       S. Insights, ‘Top 10 Trends in Biotechnology (2024),‘ StartUs Insights, Mar. 05, 2021. https://www.startus-insights.com/innovators-guide/top-10-biotech-industry-trends-innovations-in-2021/

[38]:       MRL, ‘Explore Emerging Biotech Trends in 2024 for Life Science Professionals,‘ Dec. 13, 2023. https://www.mrlcg.com/resources/blog/emerging-biotech-trends/

[39]:       F. Harvey, ‘Can we ditch intensive farming - and still feed the world?,‘ The Guardian, Jan. 28, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jan/28/can-we-ditch-intensive-farming-and-still-feed-the-world.

[40]:       EU, ‘Ageing of Europe’s farmers remains a major challenge in rural areas - European Commission,‘ Apr. 08, 2021. https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/news/ageing-europes-farmers-remains-major-challenge-rural-areas-2021-04-08_en

[41]:       BBC, ‘The ageing crisis threatening farming,‘ Feb. 18, 2021. http://www.bbc.com/future/bespoke/follow-the-food/the-ageing-crisis-threatening-farming/

[42]:       E. Williamson, ‘A Death in Dairyland Spurs a Fight Against a Silent Killer,‘ The New York Times, Apr. 19, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/us/politics/farmer-suicide-depression-wisconsin-rural.html.

[43]:       Penn State, ‘Why We Need to Keep Talking About Farm Stress,‘ Jun. 06, 2023. https://extension.psu.edu/why-we-need-to-keep-talking-about-farm-stress

[44]:       S. Forrest, ‘What is driving the high suicide rate among farmers?,‘ Dec. 12, 2022. https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/1856210606

[45]:       T. Russell, A. Stapleton, A. Markey, and L. McHugh, ‘Dying to Farm: Developing a Suicide Prevention Intervention for Farmers in Ireland,‘ 2023, https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/4/mental-health-services/connecting-for-life/publications/grant-scheme-paper-11.pdf.

[46]:       UNCCD, ‘Global Land Outlook 2,‘ UNCCD, 2022. https://www.unccd.int/resources/global-land-outlook/glo2

[47]:       P. S. Goodman and F. O’Reilly, ‘How a Fertilizer Shortage Is Spreading Desperate Hunger,‘ The New York Times, Oct. 15, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/15/business/nigeria-fertilizer-shortage.html.

[48]:       D. Broom, ‘This is how war in Europe is disrupting fertilizer supplies and threatening global food security,‘ World Economic Forum, Mar. 01, 2023. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/03/ukraine-fertilizer-food-security/

[49]:       Triangle IP, ‘20 Award Winning Agricultural Innovations,‘ Triangle IP, 2023. https://triangleip.com/20-award-winning-agricultural-innovations/

[50]:       S. Insights, ‘Uncover the Top 10 Agriculture Trends for 2024,‘ StartUs Insights, Sep. 05, 2023. https://www.startus-insights.com/innovators-guide/agriculture-trends-innovation/

[51]:       J. Scott-Reid, ‘The Backlash to Plant-Based Meat Is No Coincidence,‘ Jul. 24, 2023. https://sentientmedia.org/plant-based-backlash-explained/

[52]:       A. de Sousa and D. Shanker, ‘Beyond Meat Wannabes Are Failing as Hype and Money Fade,‘ Bloomberg.com, Jun. 22, 2023. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-22/fake-meat-companies-are-failing-as-money-dries-up-and-demand-slows.

[53]:       L. Reiley, ‘Cutting-edge tech made this tiny country a major exporter of food,‘ Washington Post, 11 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/netherlands-agriculture-technology/

[54]:       M. Attal, ‘How Good a Recycler is the Himalaya?,‘ Eos, Jan. 22, 2024. http://eos.org/editor-highlights/how-good-a-recycler-is-the-himalaya

[55]:       P. Wester, B. M. S. Rathore, L. A. Vasily, E. Sharma, and D. Molden, ‘The HKH Call to Action to sustain mountain environments and improve livelihoods in the Hindu Kush Himalaya,‘ Mountain Research and Development (MRD), 2020, https://www.doi.org/10/gthj7h

[56]:       E. Sharma et al., ‘Introduction to the Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment,‘ in The Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment: Mountains, Climate Change, Sustainability and People, P. Wester, A. Mishra, A. Mukherji, and A. B. Shrestha, Eds. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2019, pp. 1–16. https://www.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92288-1_1

[57]:       Assess HKH, ‘The HKH region - River hydrology,‘ 2008. http://www.assess-hkh.at/mains/hydrology.php

[58]:       T. R. Bartley, ‘What the Mekong mean for Security in Southeast Asia: Hydro-Hegemony and Food Insecurity, or Cooperation by Thomas Robert Bartley – Pusat Studi Sosial Asia Tenggara Universitas Gadjah Mada,‘ Jun. 09, 2023. https://pssat.ugm.ac.id/what-the-mekong-mean-for-security-in-southeast-asia-hydro-hegemony-and-food-insecurity-or-cooperation/

[59]:       MRC, ‘Mekong Basin,‘ 2023. https://www.mrcmekong.org/about/mekong-basin/

[60]:       ICIMOD, ‘Water, ice, society, and ecosystems in the Hindu Kush Himalaya: An outlook,‘ 2023, https://www.doi.org/10/gthj7j

[61]:       N. Chugh, ‘Why the Melting of the Hindu Kush and Himalayan Glaciers Matters – The Diplomat,‘ May 08, 2019. https://thediplomat.com/2019/05/why-the-melting-of-the-hindu-kush-and-himalayan-glaciers-matters/

[62]:       D. G. M. Jr and P. Chaudhary, ‘The Ganges Brims With Dangerous Bacteria,‘ The New York Times, Dec. 23, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/23/health/ganges-drug-resistant-bacteria.html.

[63]:       P. S. I. Hasnain, ‘Impact of melting glaciers in the Himalaya,‘ Jan. 12, 2023. https://www.rural21.com/fileadmin/_migrated/content_uploads/R21_Impact_of_melting_glaciers_in_the_Himalaya_0409.pdf

[64]:       Fran, ‘The causes and impacts of the melting Himalayan glaciers,‘ FutureLearn, Apr. 22, 2021. https://www.futurelearn.com/info/futurelearn-international/causes-impacts-melting-himalayan-glaciers

[65]:       AGU, ‘AGU Publications - Wiley Online Library,‘ AGU Journals, 2024. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/

[66]:       J. Malone-Leigh, J. Campanyà, P. T. Gallagher, J. Hodgson, and C. Hogg, ‘Mapping Geoelectric Field Hazards in Ireland,‘ Space Weather, vol. 22, no. 2, p. e2023SW003638, 2024, https://www.doi.org/10/gthj6r

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