Friday Focus: Trump needs to make a decision on Iran and AI has come for the laptop class
Friday Focus: Trump needs to make a decision on Iran and AI has come for the laptop class
Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to full length editions of the Friday Focus podcast with Janice Stein. Your donor membership comes with other great perks like a livestream pass to our mainstage debates and advanced access to full length episodes of our other weekly podcast with Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne.
Will the US go to war with Iran? Donald Trump is being taunted: if he backs down on his demand that Iran restrict its ballistic missiles program he will lose face in the Middle East. Janice believes that if Iran agrees to a deal that pauses its nuclear weapons program indefinitely Trump should take it and claim a big win. In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice turn to the big finance news of the week, specifically the mass selloff in software stocks that wiped one trillion dollars from the stock market due to the release of new AI bots that can automate legal and financial services. How can software companies survive in this environment? Why was the market response to these AI bots so severe? This is a signal to how new technologies are coming for white collar jobs in a way that we can’t even imagine. Are policymakers working on a response to how radical this job dislocation will be to our economy?
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