Great year for Democracy and a Chainsaw Wielding Politician

If you love democracy - this is your year

Now after our post last week regarding democracy being a great thing (find it here), you will all be thrilled to learn that this year is pretty rare in the world of elections.

Over 60 countries (and almost 60% of the world's population) will get the chance to choose their next leaders. Aside from the obvious reasons for this being important, there are some interesting undertones that make this especially noteworthy.

But first, which countries will actually be voting for their next leaders?

The USA - Filling the seat of the most powerful person on Earth doesn’t really get much more important and this year is shaping up to be quite the showdown. President Biden is the presumptive nominee from the Democratic party, and it’s looking like Trump will be the Republican nominee - very much 2020 2.0. We will almost certainly do a few more newsletters specifically about the 2024 Road To The White House. My only real conclusion so far is: seriously, out of a country of 350+ million people (with some of the most intelligent, ambitious and talented people on Earth) the best you can do is 1x narcissist/liar and 1x senile man? Sorry to any Trump/Biden lovers out there.

Taiwan - noteworthy as this is either happening or just happened as you read this. While not being a particularly large country by area or population, it is probably more strategically important for the ‘Western international order’ (or in layman's terms the US being the world’s puppet master) than any other country.

[Update: After writing this the Taiwanese election took place and Lai Cheng-te won. He is staunchly in favour of maintaining Taiwan's current status as an independent entity, resulting in tensions rising between Taiwan and China once again] - read more here

Russia - I mean who am I kidding but technically they have an election later this year. Does anyone want to take a bet on who will emerge victorious?

European Parliament - In June the EU will vote on whether the more centrist days of Merkel, Macron and von Der Leyer are behind them. There are signs of an oncoming wave of far-right populism from recent elections in Germany and The Netherlands. If these ideals populate the EU political conscience further, the region could be in for further isolationist policies and further ‘culture wars’.

India - The world's most populous country will vote to see if Prime Minister Modi will get a third term. Whilst very popular among the Hindu community, his tenureship has been branded with a slight authoritarian brush associated with clampdowns on press freedom, judicial independence and opposition parties.

The UK - While the government technically has until January 2025, it is very likely Rishi will call an election towards the end of the year. It also seems very likely that Keir Starmer will see the inside of No.10 after 14 years of Conservative governance.

What to look out for?

It seems every election is branded 'the most important for a generation’, but there are some pretty major decisions to be made in the coming months and years. The world is certainly a less stable place (notably, land war in Europe and the Middle-East) so central governments will play a crucial role in shaping these outcomes.

Generally the theme in democracies this year will be to see whether the rise in right-wing populism will overcome the centrist ideologies. Whether it’s Modi from India, debatedly Sunak from the UK or Trump from the US we will see where the dice will fall.

Will

Speech translation goes Viral

What happened?

Earlier this week the new President of Argentina made a speech at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in Davos, essentially just firing from the hip on issues of socialism, free enterprise and the West’s place in the world. This was nothing new from the chainsaw-wielding enigma of a politician. We’ll be sure to do a piece on his unbelievable ascension to the Presidency soon, but this isn’t the topic of today’s Breakdown.

The reason his speech went viral globally was due to some pretty incredible technology shown. A company called HeyGen showcased their speech translation software in real-time. I would highly recommend watching a few seconds of the video below.

To someone who doesn’t know who Javier Milie is, you would think that he is speaking English at the event while watching the video. But in fact, if you had been sitting in front of him in Davos you would have heard him speaking Spanish, his native language. In other words, HeyGen’s translation software manipulates Milie’s lip movements and overlays his Spanish words with the English translation to make it appear as though he is speaking perfect English, albeit in an Argentinian accent.

Now you might say, “Well speech translation software has been around for a while, so what’s new?” And that’s a very fair question. The major advancement is that not only is the translation instant, but it goes levels beyond anything before. Ordinarily, the translation would have to be translated to text and then put through translation software (e.g. Google Translate) and then a text-to-speech translator would have to be used. This takes a significant amount of time and the loss of the personal characteristics of the speaker. 

HeyGen does this simultaneously, leaving you wondering if you’re watching the original or the translated version. This is all done through something called Generative AI (Jack will be covering this in next Wednesday’s Breakdown so stay tuned).

What does it mean for the future?

The positives:

Language barriers might be coming to an end. Speak to anyone in the world in your language and have them understand it fully in their language (a bit like The Babel Fish if anyone else has read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy). Just think about that - perfect, real-time, translation with anyone in the world. No more awkward conversations while trying to order the cheapest wine on the menu at the French restaurant.

The negatives:

Human language translators will surely start to fall away in favour of the much cheaper, and more authentic, digital version so some job losses. But also more broadly, in say 5 years when this software has been integrated with those digital glasses we’ll all be wearing, what will be the point in learning French or Spanish or any other language for that matter when your glasses will be able to perfectly translate the words of the person speaking? Which in my mind is a little sad.

Will

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