13: Iran

Is Google about to destroy the web? the current chapter of online history is careening towards its end. Welcome to the "machine web". ......... An estimated 68% of internet activity starts on search engines and about 90% of searches happen on Google. If the internet is a garden, Google is the Sun that lets the flowers grow. ....... "For those who want an end-to-end AI Search experience, we are introducing an all-new AI Mode," he said. "It's a total reimagining of Search." ......... People use Google Search five trillion times a year – it defines the shape of the internet. AI Mode is a radical departure. Unlike AI Overviews, AI Mode replaces traditional search results altogether. Instead, a chatbot effectively creates a miniature article to answer your question. As you read this, AI Mode is rolling out to users in the US, appearing as a button on the search engine and the company's app. It's optional for now, but Google's head of Search, Liz Reid, said it plainly when launching the tool: "This is the future of Google Search." ......... Here's the problem critics foresee – AI Overviews already sends much less traffic to the rest of the internet, and many fear AI Mode could supercharge that trend. If this comes to pass, it could crush the business model that's fuelled the digital content you've enjoyed for almost 30 years. ......... Google disagrees. In fact, the company tells the BBC that AI Overviews have been good for the web, and AI Mode will be no different. Google insists these features send users to "a greater diversity of websites" and the traffic is "higher quality" because people spend more time on the links they click. ......... AI Overviews and AI Mode both include links to sources ........ AI Overviews appear to cut the amount of traffic Google sends to websites – known as the "click-through rate" – by between 30% and 70% ........ some 60% of Google searches are now "zero-click", ending without the user visiting a single link. ......... the amount of content on the web has grown by 45% in the last two years, and that's excluding spam. "We see this in the data," he said. "People are still very actively clicking through to the web." ......... AI Overviews have caused impressions to rise 49% across the web, but clicks have fallen 30% ............ We may, some believe, be at the dawn of a new paradigm, a future you might call the "machine web". One where websites are built for AI to read rather than for humans, and reading summaries by chatbots becomes a primary way we consume information. ............. Demis Hassabis, head of Google DeepMind, the company's AI research lab, said in a recent interview that he believes publishers will want to feed their content directly to AI models to facilitate this and some may not bother putting that information on websites for human beings to read. ......... One possibility is direct compensation. The New York Times is licensing content to Amazon for its AI. Google pays Reddit $60m (£44m) a year to train AI on user data. Dozens of giant publishers and media conglomerates have reportedly signed similar deals with OpenAI and others. .......... HouseFresh has pivoted to YouTube. ......... ​​"The web is still there and it's still open. If Google goes this way, some bright spark will come up with a new way of making money. ........ There is little doubt AI Mode is an impressive piece of technology. It deploys a "fan out method" where the AI breaks your question into subtopics and does multiple searches simultaneously. Google says this lets AI Mode recommends more diverse sources, produce deeper answers to more complex queries, dives deeper – and you have the ability to ask follow-up questions. ..................... Google chose to "silently update" its rules, so participating in Google Search means websites automatically give their permission to use content for AI. Publishers can opt-out – but only if they opt-out of search results altogether. .......... Some research suggests AI hallucinations are getting worse as their technical abilities improve. Even Sundar Pichai said on a podcast interview that hallucinations are "an inherent feature" of the technology – though Google is using its traditional search methods to ground AI responses, and the company says accuracy is improving. Google tells the BBC the vast majority of AI search responses are factual, and their accuracy is on par with other Search features. ............. Still, early slip ups – like the times when Google's AI Overviews told people to eat rocks and add glue to pizza recipes – linger in the public consciousness.

Appeals court temporarily allows Trump to keep National Guard in LA
Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang confirms departure for Meta as part of $14.3 billion deal
Exclusive: Foxconn sends 97% of India iPhone exports to US as Apple tackles Trump's tariffs
Mass drone raid on Crimea, explosions reported across peninsula
Trump tells Iran to make a nuclear deal "before there is nothing left"
Gavin Newsom's legal win over Trump lasts only hours
Stellantis bankrupt, Trump tariff war fueled its fall

'A question of time': Economists explain why the worst is yet to come in Trump’s economy why prices in the U.S. haven't really soared yet but are likely to do so in the months ahead ....... They argue that the impact will be much more significant this summer." ....... consumers are fed up with inflation and aren't going to be happy to see even more of it.

Judge temporarily bars Trump from deploying National Guard troops in Los Angeles
Trump mulls kneecapping SpaceX following explosive public Musk feud
'I have to go through hell': Trump complains about 'No Kings' protests during his parade

Ban Trump? Top genocide scholar issues dire warning Stanton insists that diplomacy with Trump is worse than a lost cause. The American president is no “ordinary adversary” who can be wined, dined and reasoned with, he said, but someone who “stands far outside the bounds of diplomacy and the rule of law between civilized nations.” ....... “He is a Nazi,” Stanton insisted. “Negotiating with Nazis didn’t prove useful in 1939. It won’t now either.” ......... It is not easy to accept that “it” is actually happening here — that the descent into right-wing authoritarianism could be so rapid, the institutions of democracy so weak, the orchestrator of it all such an obvious and venal perversion of the American ideal — and harder still to quit one’s economic dependence on a superpower, however much it may be imploding. But, a decade from now, it might also be hard to believe that countries didn’t pursue their own rational self-interest and isolate a man who befriended their enemies, threatened their homes and sent their citizens to Guantánamo Bay. ...... “We will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm,” Trump said when issuing his latest, sweeping travel ban, barring people from a dozen countries from ever setting foot in the former land of the free. The rest of the world, recognizing that fascism entails projection, might now wish to consider their own security.

The Real U.S.-China Trade Fight Isn’t About Exports U.S.-China trade talks are focused on export controls and tariffs, but at a deeper level they are about the future of the Pax Americana formed after World War II. A corporate-driven globalization emerged as businesses adapted to U.S. hegemony, currency dominance, and protectionism. At stake now is whether China can follow the same path as the U.S., even while the American public begins to rebel against that model. ............ Pax Americana transformed global commerce through a distinct form of economic integration built on foreign direct investment, transfer pricing, and intrafirm trade—the movement of components, services, and intellectual property among subsidiaries of the same corporation. As Europe and Asia rebuilt, U.S. companies found their exports threatened by a strong dollar and foreign protectionist measures. Their solution was to invest directly in foreign production facilities. Illustrating this shift, General Motors, Ford Motor, and IBM established manufacturing operations throughout Western Europe, reducing exchange rate challenges and trade barriers while maintaining corporate control. This approach prioritized ownership over traditional trade......... It also necessitated intrafirm trade. Today, about one-third of global trade flows within unified corporate networks rather than among independent entities, forming the hidden circulatory system of modern capitalism.......... GM exemplifies this trend. Components designed in Michigan are manufactured in Ontario, assembled in Mexico, and distributed throughout North America. What would have been exports in earlier eras now move invisibly within GM. This operational flexibility is a structural resilience that export-focused firms cannot fully replicate, particularly in periods of exchange-rate volatility. The champions of corporate globalization have effectively insulated themselves from currency fluctuations. ........ Most U.S. foreign direct investment flows to other advanced economies—Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Canada—rather than low-wage destinations. These investments prioritize proximity to customers, market access, technological ecosystems, and stability. ........ The 1985 Plaza Accord engineered a sharp appreciation of the yen against the dollar, with the exchange rate moving from 240 yen per dollar to JPY150 and reaching JPY80 a decade later. Simultaneously, the U.S. and Europe implemented export restraints, antidumping duties, and local content requirements against Japan’s imports. .......... Japanese firms responded with a massive foreign direct investment campaign. Toyota Motor, Honda Motor, and Sony Group established manufacturing operations in the U.S. and Europe, transforming from exporters into global producers with distributed networks. Like their American predecessors, Japanese companies mastered intrafirm trade and transfer pricing to maintain competitiveness despite currency and trade challenges. Their expansion was particularly strategic in its geographic targeting, establishing production hubs that could serve entire continental markets while satisfying local-content requirements. ........ Global trade governance never fully caught up. The 1947 General Agreements on Tariff and Trade focused on reducing tariffs on goods among independent economies but struggled to address the complexities of multinational networks. The World Trade Organization replaced the GATT in 1995 with a mandate covering services, IP, and investment measures—partial recognition that trade increasingly occurred within corporate structures. ......... Corporations operate globally; tax authorities regulate locally. Until that mismatch is resolved, intrafirm trade will remain a source of political and fiscal strain. This tension fuels skepticism about globalization, despite the efficiency gains and innovation that integrated production networks deliver. .............. The second involves China. The scale of its exports is destabilizing. Yet the U.S. is directly and indirectly blocking it from pursuing a comprehensive direct investment strategy. This may be a more meaningful containment of China than the more than 60 U.S. military bases in the region. .......... John Maynard Keynes opposed the economic bleeding of Germany after World War I not out of any affection for Berlin, but out of an appreciation for the likely consequences. ...... One need not believe in the Thucydides Trap to see that trying to asphyxiate China isn’t going to end well. It isn’t about ideological compatibility or strategic competitiveness, but realpolitik.

Trump Issues Grave Warning to Iran After Israeli Strikes President Donald Trump has issued a stark warning to Iran, urging the country to accept a nuclear deal to avoid further “planned attacks,” citing that “there has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter… come to an end.” ........ "I told them, in the strongest of words, to ‘just do it,’ but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done,” Trump said. “Certain Iranian hardliners spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse." ...... Trump added that Iran was told how “the United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the World, BY FAR, and that Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come. And they know how to use it.”