Biggest World Threats in 2024

By Col Dencio S. Acop (Ret), PhD, CPP | Date 07-11-2024

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS — According to Tom Bilyeu and David Brenner, the biggest world threats in 2024 are: AI warfare, media companies, and Ukraine. Besides the South China Sea and the Middle East and with some caveat, I do agree.

First, the weaponization of magnified algorithms through quantum AI which can spread false narratives siloing the world into fragmented catastrophe will adversely impact both protagonist and antagonist.

Second, while efforts are being made to establish rules of the game among eventual information providers of quantum AI, initiatives are falling away empty as quantum AI and the values associated with it are unchartered territory.

And third, the Ukraine-Russia War continues to escalate with Russia warning NATO that it would retaliate as a result of Ukraine’s use of U.S. drones over the Black Sea to pinpoint Russian targets. 

On the first point, the weaponization of magnified algorithms through quantum AI will intensify the spread of false narratives siloing the world into fragmented catastrophe. While countries resorting to this type of warfare may believe that they are advancing their national interest and security, such strategy and tactics can also backfire.

The magnified spread of false information could mask a protagonist’s real agenda, hype up its strengths and party lines, and minimize its weaknesses and vulnerabilities. But since the magnified algorithms tend to create silos, the massive fragmentations created can also bring on scattered opposition to the advocacies being spread around.

The ensuing chaos and anarchy resulting from the protagonist’s initiative may not end up working for the protagonist after all. Unless the protagonist hopes to capitalize on the resulting frenzy. As societies fragmentize, nations lose their grip.

Perhaps, this ensuing scenario is what powers like Russia and China are counting on toward ‘defeating’ the liberal global order established by the US-led western democracies. But there is likewise a flip-side to this envisioned scenario.

As Brenner and Bilyeu discussed, the magnification of these silos by quantum AI will ultimately pull individuals away in a direction far away from uniting. As diverse smaller narratives get magnified and even more fractured, the larger shared narratives of nations and institutions get weakened until they are diminished altogether. This unfortunate development, where truth becomes insignificant, threatens all that mankind has so far achieved.

This implosion of man’s achieved wisdom and values through the centuries is giving way instead to a cyber world where hacking online criminals takes center stage. When quantum AI goes full-blown, the cybermarket will usher in a ‘gold rush’ where cybercriminals become empowered through malware, hacks, and illicit data to target any vulnerable industries and institutions to steal and rob.

Soon thereafter, as the multi-billion illicit drug industry did to the world, government officials and governments themselves, enticed both by bribery and corruption as well as the national interest (paradoxically), will inevitably co-opt the criminals themselves to further national security.

It does not take much imagination to foresee where quantum AI is leading the future in this regard. Word is that AI will be transformative to governance within 5 to 10 years.

Quantum AI has the capacity to quickly decrypt traditionally held trade secrets and it will only be a matter of time before geopolitics, new bio-weapons, and even future currency like bitcoin, fiat money, and any digital currency are impacted. Currency and criminals are related to power. The great powers understand this, especially China. And that is why this new superpower on the block has its eyes on quantum AI.

Nevertheless, there is likewise a drawback even to the wielders of quantum AI. China is willing to accept economic losses to preserve political stability. This was highly visible at Tiananmen Square as it is now very visible in the South China Sea.

However, China is selling crappy false narratives. This is going to be its undoing even with AI. No matter how quickly and long false information travels, true information still has a way of surfacing in due time with all the possible reactions that can come along with it, not all of which will be favorable to the harbinger.       

Secondly, while efforts are being made to establish rules of the game among eventual information providers of quantum AI, initiatives are falling away empty as quantum AI and the values associated with it are unchartered territory.

The Biden White House has recently convened a meeting among the leaders of seven AI companies in an effort to establish some kind of governance structure leading forward. No such rules of the game could be arrived at. It wasn’t surprising as the field is new and not even the White House has the answers.

After all, what are the values associated with AI? Will AI have any accountability? How about credibility? Even today, the world is already faced with a deluge of false narratives going all around the internet. Information users who are not keen on discerning refereed information from false ones are prone to disinformation.

The powers of governments today are diminishing. Those unaccountable wealthy individuals and companies who run today’s sources of information have grown relatively more powerful. While media is the third estate and a boon to humanity, its purveyors can also be a threat if and when they do act not in furtherance of the common good and global security.

Naturally, there is always the danger of competing interests between profit margins and philanthropic ideals. Because of the influential power wielded by media moguls and companies, they become persons and organizations of interest targeted by equally powerful government leaders including rogue ones.

The thin line of power separating these public and private individuals more easily disappears in authoritarian states whose totalitarianism effectively engulfs any semblance of free speech. China and Russia are such states. Quantum AI, therefore, is easily a part of the grand strategy of China’s Communist Party to assert its dominance in the 21st century.

If the global leaders of the third estate align themselves with today’s political leaders with imperialistic tendencies, then the scope of the arena of battle becomes total as quantum AI will, in a magnified way, quickly accelerate the superiority of wisdom in every area of global competition – economically, politically, militarily, and psycho-socially.  

Finally, the Ukraine-Russia War continues to escalate with Russia warning NATO that it would retaliate as a result of Ukraine’s use of U.S. drones over the Black Sea pinpointing Russian targets. Putin’s threat has NATO countries reactivating their once-mothballed nuclear warheads. But even before involved countries consider their nuclear option, the reality on the ground is that both Russia and Ukraine need all the help they can get to sustain their conventional war against each other.

As the US and NATO support Ukraine militarily, Vladimir Putin recently paid a rare visit to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un both to seek continued arms imports as well as to send a warning signal to South Korea which sells arms to Ukraine.

Moscow has always been paranoid about encirclement from its enemies, real or imagined. Russia invaded Ukraine precisely to halt NATO’s advance into its western border if Ukraine became a NATO member. It also did so in order to prevent the encirclement of Belarus, a close ally and another buffer to the West.

Most importantly, Russia invaded Ukraine to have unimpeded access to its naval fleet in the Black Sea and to punish Ukraine for increasing its gas transit taxes. Russia now occupies around 25% of Ukrainian territory mostly to the east and south (Crimea, Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, Mykolayiv, and Zaporizhzhya Oblasts).

While Ukraine and NATO aim for the total recovery of Ukraine’s territory including Crimea, there is a real possibility that a peaceful settlement can only come about if Ukraine agrees to its partition. The conventional nature of the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as the potential war in Taiwan from China, may seem manageable but the real danger from any of these is the potential for nuclear escalation.

The leaders of involved nuclear countries have explicitly warned their adversaries about the use of their nuclear option if all else fails. Putin, Netanyahu, and Xi have said it, directly or indirectly. Some have said it out of desperation; Others out of overconfidence. In each of these regional hotspots are nuclear powers either directly or indirectly involved.

The US supports Israel against Iran and its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah in the Middle East. China and North Korea support Russia against Ukraine which is supported by the US and NATO. Russia and North Korea support China in its bid to regain back Taiwan. The US supports the Philippines in its defense against China’s aggression in the West Philippine Sea.

The problem with the nuclear option is that it is unwinnable. Everyone is a loser. It is suicidal. Theoretical Science and actual tests have already warned the world about the extinctual consequences of a nuclear holocaust. The most disturbing danger is that one warhead launched in any of the regional hotspots will most absolutely trigger a subsequent response from adversaries leading to an irreversible launching of nuclear missiles from the nearest launch sites to hit strategic and tactical targets.

The hotspots are symptoms of countries’ quests for power in order to preserve their cultures. They reflect the global antagonisms that divide the current world between advocates of authoritarianism and democracy.

Essentially, such a scenario would lead to reciprocal upheavals that would not end until the earth is totally annihilated into a meltdown lasting centuries of nuclear winter. It would mean the end of mankind as we know it. The atomic bomb should never have been invented. It is the worst invention of mankind that would eventually end all of man’s earthly achievements and future aspirations.