The US goes "all in on Africa's future", AI improves storytelling techniques and social media debates "nepo babies"
December 2022
Happy holidays!🎆
Here we are again. Planet Earth has almost completed another orbit around the Sun.
Listing the key moments of 2022 feels like an impossible task, but I was profoundly moved by the New York Times photojournalism calendar, which contains extraordinary pictures from across the globe.
Thanks for reading Deep Dive - I truly appreciate your support and messages.
Wishing you a fun and peaceful start to the new year!
SEEKING TO RESET RELATIONS
Two global heavyweights flexed their diplomatic muscles in a grand way this month. President Xi Jinping made a rare trip outside China to meet Saudi royals and officials in Riyadh. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden invited Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House to present a united front against Russia.
But let’s focus on the second US-Africa Leaders Summit, which took place eight years after Barack Obama hosted the inaugural event. From 13 to 15 December, leaders from 49 African countries gathered in Washington to discuss the US’s commitment to the continent.
“The United States is all in on Africa's future,” said Biden, who also promised US$55 billion of financial assistance. There were similar positive remarks from Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Will those pledges do much to reset the “listless relationship with Africa”? Analysts say the US is beginning to consider different tools of engagement in light of China and Russia’s growing influence. China, in particular, is sub-Saharan Africa’s largest state lender, and its infrastructure projects span the region.
As this video report by Channel News Asia explains, Washington needs a serious game plan to play catch-up to Beijing.
CONVERSATIONS WITH A CHATBOT
Are AI writing tools capable of composing this newsletter? Not yet, but we do appear to be heading in that direction.
Research lab OpenAI unveiled its artificial intelligence-enabled chatbot, called ChatGPT, a month ago and the results are fascinating.
Beyond searching and summarising information available online, the program can “answer followup questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests.” In essence, ChatGPT is designed to understand specific queries and give thoughtful-sounding responses.
In the first week of ChatGPT’s launch, 1+ million users signed up to test the service, and screenshots of its answers - ranging from the academic to the absurd - flooded Twitter feeds.
However, those users quickly discovered that the chatbot can mimic an authoritative tone but deliver misinformation too. As an article in Bloomberg points out, ChatGPT doesn’t divulge any sources and the dataset it pulls from only contains limited information after 2021.
Nonetheless, the volume of think pieces on whether AI tools will replace journalists, end Google’s dominance and encourage cheating on school assignments suggests nervousness around the (inevitable?) tech disruption.
GENERATIONAL PRIVILEGE
“It’s not what you know but who you know.” This is a common refrain in professional circles – and, let’s be honest, many other aspects of life. From booking a job interview to getting a table at an exclusive restaurant, connections to decisionmakers help enormously.
One industry where personal ties can make or break your career is entertainment. Having an actress mother or producer uncle with access to casting directors is obviously an advantage. Having parents with box office clout means you probably aren’t tending bar while waiting for audition callbacks.
Nepotism is a decades-old phenomenon in Hollywood (celebrity offspring include Jane Fonda, Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow), but Gen Z netizens say they’re now spotting “nepo babies” everywhere, especially in their favourite Netflix shows.
“Today, they’re not only abundant — they’re thriving. In an industry built on reboots, a famous last name can be valuable intellectual property. A celebrity child brings an easy marketing hook as well as millions of TikTok followers,” reports New York Magazine, which declared 2022 “The Year of the Nepo Baby”.
The eye-catching cover, splashy feature and Instagram infographics have caused a huge stir online and in the media, generating even more page views for NY Magazine (smart move on the publisher’s part!).
Several “nepo babies” have recently waded into the debate on their lineage, denying accusations of privilege and entitlement, which - ironically - proves that they’re still clueless about their lucky positions.
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Take care and stay curious, Sara x