Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / P&L: Where China Comes Into Play in U.S.-Russia Relations
Transcript
- 0:04Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg P and L Podcast. I'm Pim Fox.
- 0:08Speaker 1: Along with my co host Lisa Abramowitz. Each day we
- 0:11Speaker 1: bring you the most important, noteworthy, and useful interviews for
- 0:14Speaker 1: you and your money, whether at the grocery store or
- 0:16Speaker 1: the trading floor. Find the Bloomberg P L Podcast on iTunes,
- 0:20Speaker 1: SoundCloud and at Bloomberg dot com. A new kind of
- 0:29Speaker 1: Cold war, perhaps one waged in trade policy and sanctions.
- 0:34Speaker 1: Here to tell us more Ariel Cohen. He is a
- 0:37Speaker 1: Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and also the director
- 0:40Speaker 1: of the Center for Energy, Natural Resources, and Geopolitics at
- 0:44Speaker 1: the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. Ariel, thank
- 0:48Speaker 1: you very much for being with us. Now, I gotta
- 0:51Speaker 1: just by that introduction, I have to assume you know
- 0:53Speaker 1: just about everything there is to know, but you can't
- 0:56Speaker 1: foretell the future. But having said that, so, given your contact,
- 1:00Speaker 1: the context in which we operate right now, what is
- 1:03Speaker 1: the most crucial, UH kind of foreign policy issue that
- 1:07Speaker 1: you believe President elect Donald Trump will tackle. I think
- 1:11Speaker 1: the clear focus of Trump is on the Pacific UH.
- 1:16Speaker 1: I suspect that the one who is going to implement
- 1:20Speaker 1: the pivot to the Pacific that President Obama talked about
- 1:24Speaker 1: so much and didn't do much uh, and then got
- 1:27Speaker 1: an egg on his face with the Philippines. Of course,
- 1:30Speaker 1: the real pivot is going to be on the Trump
- 1:32Speaker 1: and it's not going to be pretty. Because China is
- 1:35Speaker 1: the rising power, it's rising great power. Uh. They have
- 1:39Speaker 1: a history and culture of playing strategic games. UH. Their
- 1:43Speaker 1: national game is go, which is capturing territory. UH, and
- 1:48Speaker 1: it's played for a long, long period of time. So
- 1:52Speaker 1: I suspect that Donald Trump is trying to butter up
- 1:56Speaker 1: Putin uh detached Russia for China at toll order. Indeed,
- 2:02Speaker 1: I wasn't Russia three weeks ago, and the Russians told
- 2:06Speaker 1: me it'll take you a great effort to detach us
- 2:10Speaker 1: from China. Uh, and then there will be some kind
- 2:13Speaker 1: of a new Cold war trade war with Beijing. And
- 2:18Speaker 1: I really hope and pray that our country will come
- 2:20Speaker 1: out on top and in fact that we'll turn it
- 2:22Speaker 1: into a win win. Well, based on what you know
- 2:26Speaker 1: of President elect Donald Trump and also the books that
- 2:29Speaker 1: he has written, what's your estimate, what's it looked like
- 2:32Speaker 1: in the future. It looks like the art of the
- 2:35Speaker 1: deal is going to be the guiding principle, push the
- 2:40Speaker 1: other side as much as you think it's safe to
- 2:44Speaker 1: push them without losing the deal. What does Trump want?
- 2:47Speaker 1: He wants jobs, jobs, jobs for Americans. What does that mean.
- 2:51Speaker 1: It means that we cannot have our prime, prime industrial
- 2:56Speaker 1: competitor China with such a low exchange rate for that
- 3:00Speaker 1: you want. Uh, it means we'll have to find ways
- 3:02Speaker 1: to make our industry more competitive. After all, if you're
- 3:06Speaker 1: looking at industrial production, uh, and not just services and
- 3:11Speaker 1: alto high tech. We have to compete against the workers
- 3:15Speaker 1: that are paid maybe a fraction of our workers are paid.
- 3:18Speaker 1: And when it comes to Russia, look, Russia is not
- 3:22Speaker 1: our friend. Um. I was born there, I speak the language.
- 3:25Speaker 1: I met put In ten times, and I can tell
- 3:28Speaker 1: you they don't like us. Having said that, there are
- 3:31Speaker 1: can you just hold on, Ario, just expand a little
- 3:34Speaker 1: bit on your your meetings with Vladimir Putin. Maybe just
- 3:37Speaker 1: give us some insight into the kind of person he's
- 3:40Speaker 1: he is, and what's it like to be in a
- 3:42Speaker 1: room with him and so on. Uh. You know, it's
- 3:46Speaker 1: a weird combination of intensity and being really cold. Um,
- 3:52Speaker 1: so it's cold intensity, I guess. Uh. He makes his
- 3:56Speaker 1: staff scared he got his translator that he kept correcting,
- 4:02Speaker 1: very very nervous in front of the group of US.
- 4:06Speaker 1: But he commands a huge amount of information, keeps it
- 4:10Speaker 1: in his head, doesn't use the queue cards or notes uh,
- 4:15Speaker 1: and sometimes makes really really big mistakes, which raises a
- 4:19Speaker 1: question who is briefing him? And I know who's briefing
- 4:22Speaker 1: him to see his security services are briefing him. What
- 4:24Speaker 1: kind of mistakes are you talking about? Oh, he for example,
- 4:28Speaker 1: said that the United States was supporting the Gades in
- 4:32Speaker 1: North Caucuses in Chechenna, and I don't buy it for
- 4:34Speaker 1: a moment. We're not that crazy. Would you say that
- 4:37Speaker 1: that's a mistake or rather, do you believe that he
- 4:40Speaker 1: is saying that because he he wants just to say that,
- 4:42Speaker 1: rather than knowing that it's a mistake or what what
- 4:45Speaker 1: is that? I think Russian should know that we did
- 4:48Speaker 1: not do that. And there's there's a huge difference between collection.
- 4:52Speaker 1: I asked him flat out, So what's your evidence for that? Said, Oh,
- 4:56Speaker 1: your intelligence officers met with it, where our intelligence officers
- 4:59Speaker 1: would meet almost with anybody to collect. But that does
- 5:02Speaker 1: not mean we would train and equip the jihadi is
- 5:05Speaker 1: the Chechens who killed children and things like that. I
- 5:09Speaker 1: hope and pray we don't. All right, law, Let's turn,
- 5:12Speaker 1: so what is what have you learned about Vladimir Putin's
- 5:14Speaker 1: relationship with China that would be useful for an investment.
- 5:17Speaker 1: And they have a strategic they have a strategic relationship. Uh,
- 5:21Speaker 1: energy is very important, that is aimed at us. Energy
- 5:25Speaker 1: is important. But if you look at the costs of
- 5:30Speaker 1: building these two huge gas pipelines, uh, the Power of
- 5:35Speaker 1: Siberia and the Altai. One is from East Siberia once
- 5:39Speaker 1: from West Siberia. We're talking billions and billions, tens of
- 5:42Speaker 1: billions of dollars. And the Chinese were lending this money.
- 5:46Speaker 1: And to get their worth back, the Russians need high
- 5:50Speaker 1: oil prices. This is a paramount concern for the Russians.
- 5:54Speaker 1: The oil prices as they are now are too low.
- 5:58Speaker 1: Cents fifty two is not good for the Russians at
- 6:01Speaker 1: not at all, not at all. And you remember everybody
- 6:04Speaker 1: was talking about this deal that rex Diderson cut with
- 6:08Speaker 1: ross Neft, the Russian for the Socolon project. No after that,
- 6:14Speaker 1: after the Arctic for the Arctic hundred billion dollars over
- 6:18Speaker 1: thirty years. But guess what. The Arctic oil is not
- 6:22Speaker 1: profitable when oil prices are below eighty and there, as
- 6:26Speaker 1: you said, fifty two now and nobody knows when they're
- 6:29Speaker 1: going to be eighty again. So Russia is an interesting play.
- 6:32Speaker 1: There's plenty of oil and Russian UH and gas UH,
- 6:35Speaker 1: and some of it is still very economical, so they
- 6:38Speaker 1: want to compete. But they will push, push, push in
- 6:41Speaker 1: the Middle East and elsewhere for instability to drive the
- 6:44Speaker 1: oil prices up. Mr Putin is ahead of Russia oil
- 6:49Speaker 1: and guests Inc. Meaning the gas prom and ross Neft
- 6:52Speaker 1: and other companies that they control and UH. He is
- 6:55Speaker 1: a tough negotiator. Mr Kitchen, the head of Ross's Neft,
- 6:59Speaker 1: is a very tough negotiator. He just pulled in UH
- 7:03Speaker 1: over eleven billion from Katar and Glencore to buy rosne
- 7:09Speaker 1: Still valuations per barrel UH a much much lower than
- 7:13Speaker 1: x Ono, BP or Shell. But nevertheless, Russia is a
- 7:17Speaker 1: huge player. They want the sanctions um waived by Mr
- 7:22Speaker 1: Trump UH. And the question I'm asking is Mr Trump
- 7:26Speaker 1: applying the art of the deal. What is going to
- 7:29Speaker 1: be the quickpro lall when you're negotiating with Mr Putson. Well,
- 7:33Speaker 1: maybe he's going to give you a call. We look
- 7:35Speaker 1: forward to it. You certainly have met Mr Puttin apparently
- 7:37Speaker 1: more times than President elect Donald Trump. Thank you very much.
- 7:41Speaker 1: Ril Cohen. He is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council.
- 7:45Speaker 1: He's also the director of the Center for Energy, Natural
- 7:48Speaker 1: Resources and Geopolitics at the Institute for Analysis of Global
- 7:53Speaker 1: Security in Washington, d C. Of course home to Bloomberg
- 7:57Speaker 1: and one oh five point seven h d to. I
- 8:12Speaker 1: know that we've got on on Trin of us and
- 8:13Speaker 1: he joins us in studio and on you. You are
- 8:16Speaker 1: the expert when it comes to the semiconductor industry or
- 8:18Speaker 1: a hardware analysts to force here at Bloomberg Intelligence. Thanks
- 8:21Speaker 1: for coming in. UH tell us about what's going on
- 8:24Speaker 1: with the US chip industry and this idea that there is.
- 8:28Speaker 1: I was writing this down. There's the Committee on Foreign Investments.
- 8:32Speaker 1: It's a little hard to figure out exactly who they
- 8:34Speaker 1: are what they do, but they're important. If a foreign
- 8:37Speaker 1: company wants to buy shares in the U S company
- 8:40Speaker 1: that that that's right, PIM. This is a congressional committee
- 8:44Speaker 1: which has different UM. This is an agency that is
- 8:48Speaker 1: formed with members from Treasury from UM. UH from justice,
- 8:52Speaker 1: from defense from state, and this collective group will weigh
- 8:57Speaker 1: in as to the whether mayor can interests are being
- 9:01Speaker 1: upheld or threatened as a result of any particular transaction.
- 9:06Speaker 1: This could be the American subsidiary of a firm, This
- 9:09Speaker 1: could be American manufacturing exposure, or this could be an
- 9:13Speaker 1: American domiciles company. UM and in this in over the
- 9:17Speaker 1: last two years or so, the Chinese government has made
- 9:21Speaker 1: it a mandate of source to UM heighten its exposure
- 9:25Speaker 1: and interest in the in the global semiconductor space by
- 9:28Speaker 1: acquiring intellectual property, by acquiring companies outright. They wanted to
- 9:33Speaker 1: buy Extron right and that they did and they were.
- 9:36Speaker 1: They were indications of Chinese state owned in company interest
- 9:40Speaker 1: in Micron as well, which is the last memory company
- 9:43Speaker 1: here in the United States. And all of this has
- 9:46Speaker 1: heightened the interest level by Cephius and they are both
- 9:51Speaker 1: UM more engaged as well as perhaps feel more threatened
- 9:56Speaker 1: as a result of this heightened state owned interest, a
- 10:00Speaker 1: Chinese state interest in the semiconducting industry. They're worried that
- 10:05Speaker 1: intellectual property could go overseas and that the us UM
- 10:10Speaker 1: interests could be threatened. Now in the case of Extron.
- 10:14Speaker 1: And the reason I mentioned this is because here you
- 10:16Speaker 1: have a company that is in domicile in Germany, headquarters
- 10:20Speaker 1: in Germany, but because just as you described, it has
- 10:24Speaker 1: operations in the United States. This Committee on Foreign Investments
- 10:28Speaker 1: they have a say. Right the purview of this particular
- 10:31Speaker 1: agency isn't determined by whether the company is incorporated here
- 10:36Speaker 1: UM or is domiciled here, it's UH, it's interests depending
- 10:40Speaker 1: on whether they have jobs here, there are this intellectual
- 10:43Speaker 1: property here, there's manufacturing here, there's sales here, and potentially
- 10:47Speaker 1: customers here, etcetera, etcetera. So loosely defined whether American interests
- 10:52Speaker 1: are are at risk or not, and you know that
- 10:56Speaker 1: you have to look at the context overall as well.
- 10:59Speaker 1: The semikin of industry the last two years has going
- 11:01Speaker 1: through a substantial consolidation for a variety of reasons, whether
- 11:05Speaker 1: it's for scale, whether it's for margin expansion, sales expansion, UH,
- 11:10Speaker 1: putting two products together, UM, logical product overlap, etcetera, etcetera.
- 11:15Speaker 1: For a whole host of reasons, the consolidation has made sense,
- 11:19Speaker 1: and the Chinese state owned interest or state owned companies
- 11:23Speaker 1: have been a participant in in that category. In a
- 11:27Speaker 1: substantial way. If you take that out, it takes a
- 11:30Speaker 1: little bit out of the um uh, the fluff out
- 11:35Speaker 1: of the semiconductor land takes a buy if if right,
- 11:38Speaker 1: it takes a buyer out. If you've got fewer bias,
- 11:40Speaker 1: chances are you're not gonna necessarily get that much bidding activities.
- 11:43Speaker 1: So maybe if the presses prices that these companies are
- 11:46Speaker 1: hoping to get absolutely so, one of the other routes
- 11:49Speaker 1: for Chinese companies, whether it's state owned or private, to
- 11:52Speaker 1: take in this in this scenario could be a partnership.
- 11:56Speaker 1: We've seen a lot of HP transactions as UM with
- 12:00Speaker 1: this sort of a model. We've seen as seen a
- 12:03Speaker 1: little bit of Intel do this similar things. We've seen
- 12:05Speaker 1: Qualcom do similar things. Maybe the nature of the m
- 12:09Speaker 1: and A or the nature of the transactions changes into
- 12:13Speaker 1: more of a JV structure, more of a partnership agreement
- 12:17Speaker 1: structure rather than an outright by which is going to
- 12:20Speaker 1: be more difficult. The third parties get squeezed. I mean
- 12:24Speaker 1: companies that are doing manufacturing let's say in Taiwan or
- 12:28Speaker 1: in um you know, uh, South Korea, for example, are
- 12:32Speaker 1: they getting squeezed because it's either going to be you
- 12:34Speaker 1: make it in China and just strict rules or in
- 12:37Speaker 1: the introductional property comes from the the Actually, to be
- 12:40Speaker 1: quite honest, there's a more disrupting influence in this equation,
- 12:44Speaker 1: which is the US China trade relationship. And if there is,
- 12:48Speaker 1: if there's a wrench thrown into that kind of a system,
- 12:52Speaker 1: then UH, semiconductor manufacturing particularly will be will be threatened,
- 12:58Speaker 1: technology manufacturing gen really will be threatened, and we will
- 13:01Speaker 1: have to find a new home for all of these places.
- 13:04Speaker 1: One of the interesting UM by products is of the
- 13:08Speaker 1: of the new incoming administration, could be some shifts in
- 13:13Speaker 1: this particular landscape could certainly make a portent to shift
- 13:17Speaker 1: in where the money is coming. Absolutely, But the interesting
- 13:20Speaker 1: part of it is, look, US companies or global technology
- 13:24Speaker 1: companies don't manufacture in China because it's neat, it's it's
- 13:29Speaker 1: substantially cheaper, and you get substantial tax breaks, manufacturing incentives, etcetera.
- 13:36Speaker 1: To try and make UM your ecosystem there. And it's
- 13:40Speaker 1: also you've had a history of success there. All of
- 13:44Speaker 1: the companies are co located very efficiently from a geographic perspective,
- 13:48Speaker 1: So all of these things make for UM an interesting location.
- 13:52Speaker 1: To make it and a movement there will be harmful.
- 13:56Speaker 1: Thanks very much on Entren of US and our senior
- 13:58Speaker 1: Semiconductor and hardware anal for Bloomberg Intelligence. We also want
- 14:12Speaker 1: to look at as the automobile companies because President elect
- 14:15Speaker 1: Donald Trump tweeted over the holiday, I guess respite that
- 14:21Speaker 1: the General Motors should be making the Chevy Cruise in
- 14:25Speaker 1: the United States. Well, when we want to know about automobiles,
- 14:28Speaker 1: we called David Welch, bureau chief for Bloomberg News in Detroit. David,
- 14:33Speaker 1: thanks for being with us. How many Crews automobiles are
- 14:37Speaker 1: made every year and where are they made? Well, So
- 14:41Speaker 1: GM sols a couple of hundred, and it's mostly the
- 14:45Speaker 1: sedan these days. Americans aren't really interested in compact cars
- 14:49Speaker 1: because gas is cheap, and they have never been interested
- 14:52Speaker 1: in hatchbacks. The crew hatchback is with the plant in
- 14:55Speaker 1: Mexico builds and it's mostly for the Mexican market, for
- 14:59Speaker 1: South America and to export to other places. The Cruise
- 15:03Speaker 1: that is sold mostly to Americans is building words toown Ohio.
- 15:07Speaker 1: So there's there's a bit of uh saber rattling over
- 15:11Speaker 1: a really small number of cars. With Donald Trump's tweet
- 15:16Speaker 1: this morning, I see, so that the point being that
- 15:18Speaker 1: the automobiles in question are typically for the Mexican market.
- 15:22Speaker 1: So I read a number that this accounts for maybe
- 15:26Speaker 1: like two two and a half percent of all the
- 15:28Speaker 1: production of cruise vehicles. And as you said, the hatchback
- 15:31Speaker 1: is not a big seller, correct, it's a very small number. Now,
- 15:36Speaker 1: the broader point, and you know, let's face it, Trump
- 15:40Speaker 1: has never really um bothered himself with with my new
- 15:44Speaker 1: details on things or specifics. His broader point is that
- 15:49Speaker 1: a lot of production has gone to Mexico, and about
- 15:52Speaker 1: two thirds, a little less let's call it, of Mexican
- 15:56Speaker 1: auto production is sent to the US or ended that.
- 16:00Speaker 1: So there is a wage difference. It's about five or
- 16:04Speaker 1: six hours an hour versus an average of about twenty four.
- 16:08Speaker 1: Uh So automakers are saving on that. And it's not
- 16:11Speaker 1: just US automakers. Everybody is down there now. And there
- 16:15Speaker 1: are also some great free trade deals that allow companies
- 16:17Speaker 1: to export cars all over over the world. Mexico is
- 16:22Speaker 1: kind of about flank to the US and Canada on
- 16:24Speaker 1: those deals. So there's a lot of stagments, and that's
- 16:27Speaker 1: that's his point. This particular car though, is not really Uh,
- 16:32Speaker 1: it wouldn't be of any consequence. GM cut a shift.
- 16:35Speaker 1: They used to make the Cruise on three shifts, now
- 16:38Speaker 1: they make it at two shifts in Lordstown, Ohio. If
- 16:41Speaker 1: you brought the Cruise hatchback to the US, that would
- 16:44Speaker 1: not add a shift. They would just camp up the
- 16:46Speaker 1: line speed a little bit and have the same workers,
- 16:49Speaker 1: you know, work a little quicker to make it. It's
- 16:50Speaker 1: just not a consequential number of cars. It certainly does
- 16:54Speaker 1: look like investors and kind of seeing through this latest
- 16:58Speaker 1: Trump effect, you might say in GM was down just
- 17:02Speaker 1: maybe half a percent or so before the opening bell,
- 17:06Speaker 1: and since then means stock has generally been higher. It's
- 17:10Speaker 1: up almost two percent at this point. So for the
- 17:12Speaker 1: same thing with Ford Motor Company. Ford Motor Company up
- 17:15Speaker 1: more than two and a half percent, right, and they've
- 17:17Speaker 1: certainly been in the cross hairs as well because of
- 17:19Speaker 1: their Mexican production. So you know, it's like people are
- 17:23Speaker 1: looking at what's coming out over Twitter and really trying
- 17:26Speaker 1: to make sense out of it, as opposed to just
- 17:29Speaker 1: knee jerk reacting to whatever the latest A hundred and
- 17:32Speaker 1: forty characters are saying, Well, David Welch. You mentioned something
- 17:36Speaker 1: about what Americans like to drive, and right now, with
- 17:40Speaker 1: gasoline prices where they are, it seems like if they
- 17:41Speaker 1: only want large automobiles, large vehicles, light trucks for example,
- 17:45Speaker 1: pretty much yeah, it's you pickup trucks are doing well
- 17:49Speaker 1: and and now that's often tired of the housing market.
- 17:51Speaker 1: But it terms were consumers by the family car is
- 17:54Speaker 1: now really the family crossover actual, So the Chevy Equinox
- 17:59Speaker 1: is GMS some mid sized crossover suv that's pretty new
- 18:03Speaker 1: to the market, always the newest generation is that's the
- 18:07Speaker 1: one that Trump actually could have made some hay out
- 18:10Speaker 1: of if he had really studied what GM was doing
- 18:12Speaker 1: in Mexico, because that vehicle is made in a plant
- 18:16Speaker 1: in Ingersoll, Ontario, and with the new version that's just
- 18:19Speaker 1: coming out, GM went from one plant, which is the
- 18:22Speaker 1: one in Canada, to three and the other tour in Mexico.
- 18:25Speaker 1: So you will see a number of very important vehicles
- 18:29Speaker 1: that sell for thirty thousand or more for American families
- 18:33Speaker 1: with a Chevy badge on coming up from Mexico. That's
- 18:36Speaker 1: really the one that if he wanted to make hay,
- 18:39Speaker 1: he could have the same kind of goes for the
- 18:41Speaker 1: link in m K very small volume vehicle that Ford
- 18:45Speaker 1: made in Kentucky. They were going to send it Mexico.
- 18:47Speaker 1: Trump got them to keep it. That was another kind
- 18:50Speaker 1: of similar to the Cruise, pretty small volume. If you
- 18:54Speaker 1: really want to go after these guys, you got to
- 18:57Speaker 1: find a big volume vehicle and a plant that and
- 19:00Speaker 1: started making production. Yet and you say it's the Equinox, Yeah,
- 19:05Speaker 1: is a big deal. How much? Just quickly? How many? About?
- 19:09Speaker 1: How many do they sell? You are they planning to sell? Oh?
- 19:12Speaker 1: It's you know, depending on how will they do it? Well?
- 19:16Speaker 1: Over two? Right and probably close to three. All right,
- 19:20Speaker 1: thanks very much. David Welch of your chief Bloomberg News
- 19:23Speaker 1: from Detroit. Part he's got his comfortable shoes packed. He's
- 19:38Speaker 1: getting ready for Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas. But
- 19:42Speaker 1: before he goes out west, he joins us here in
- 19:46Speaker 1: the studio. David Garretty is the chief executive a g
- 19:49Speaker 1: v A Research, a columnist at Investo PDA, and he
- 19:54Speaker 1: is followable on Twitter at g v A Research. Alright,
- 19:58Speaker 1: followable at g v A You search, I like you know,
- 20:00Speaker 1: this is a whole new Twitter world, David, You've been
- 20:03Speaker 1: following technology for how long now, uh, since the last millennium? Yeah, okay,
- 20:07Speaker 1: since the lab right when was allowed. Is this a
- 20:10Speaker 1: new era where you have the President elect of the
- 20:14Speaker 1: United States tweeting about GM about building a car that
- 20:19Speaker 1: isn't actually that you know, widely sold the United States,
- 20:22Speaker 1: building it in Mexico and saying, you know, you better
- 20:24Speaker 1: build it in the United States, and then Ford coming
- 20:27Speaker 1: out and saying, on the other hand, we're not going
- 20:30Speaker 1: to build out that plant in San Potosi, San Luis Potosi,
- 20:34Speaker 1: in Mexico, the one point six billion dollar plant. This
- 20:38Speaker 1: is a tech store as much as anything. Do you
- 20:39Speaker 1: think it's very much of a tech story in very
- 20:41Speaker 1: much discussion here about the technology disrupting what had been
- 20:45Speaker 1: sort of well established patterns in this case of communication
- 20:49Speaker 1: and policy making and also the communication of policy. From
- 20:53Speaker 1: that standpoint, one has to be always concerned with respect
- 20:57Speaker 1: to technologies ability to outrun human comprehension. So from that standpoint,
- 21:05Speaker 1: we stand here at a maybe a dangerous point where
- 21:09Speaker 1: you know, things out strip, where events move faster than
- 21:13Speaker 1: people have the ability to actually manage them. And when
- 21:16Speaker 1: you're talking about you know the world's leading economy and
- 21:20Speaker 1: worlds leading military power the consequences should be concerning clearly,
- 21:26Speaker 1: having said that technology always has the mantra that if
- 21:30Speaker 1: there is a problem that technology creates, they also have
- 21:33Speaker 1: a solution, and in this case artificial intelligence, this is
- 21:37Speaker 1: going to be one of the trends that is going
- 21:39Speaker 1: to be featured at the Consumer Electronics Show. Tell us
- 21:42Speaker 1: about artificial intelligence very much so in terms of looking
- 21:45Speaker 1: at AI mean, we're looking here at arguably a technology
- 21:49Speaker 1: development that one might be considering as an apex, a
- 21:53Speaker 1: peak element in terms of dominating the technology ecosystem, and
- 21:57Speaker 1: this is something that potentially is going to be introduced
- 22:00Speaker 1: in a fairly wide range of areas. We certainly know that,
- 22:04Speaker 1: you know, there are elements in terms of chat bots
- 22:06Speaker 1: that are being developed by various social media companies, but
- 22:09Speaker 1: clearly this goes well beyond that, and we may be
- 22:12Speaker 1: looking here just given the amount of data that's being generated.
- 22:15Speaker 1: I mean, we're looking here potentially at something long so
- 22:18Speaker 1: you know, forty four zetta bytes of data being produced
- 22:21Speaker 1: by that's a lot of information to basically I don't
- 22:24Speaker 1: even know what a zetta byte is. I mean, I
- 22:26Speaker 1: know how many movies you know, you can get with
- 22:27Speaker 1: one gigabyte. That's kind of one. But Tesla I love
- 22:31Speaker 1: this example. Tesla has aggregated the data of eight hundred
- 22:37Speaker 1: million miles of driving already already, And obviously this is
- 22:41Speaker 1: only you get the opt out when you get into
- 22:43Speaker 1: behind the wheel of a Tesla and say, look, I
- 22:45Speaker 1: don't want my driving. I would imagine that you're going
- 22:47Speaker 1: to find a situation. I don't think that de'll be
- 22:49Speaker 1: able to because clearly the interest here in terms of
- 22:52Speaker 1: the people providing the products is to capture the information.
- 22:55Speaker 1: The value resides in the data and what you can
- 22:58Speaker 1: learn from this. And in the case of back to
- 23:00Speaker 1: artificial intelligence, we're probably gonna be seeing creation of new
- 23:03Speaker 1: market here called artificial intelligence as a service, and in
- 23:07Speaker 1: its full blown promise, it might lead to an improvement
- 23:10Speaker 1: in terms of productivity because clearly machines that have greater
- 23:15Speaker 1: computing power than possibly humans you know, maybe turned over
- 23:18Speaker 1: to do this work. The question is always going to
- 23:19Speaker 1: be what are the humans going to do in the
- 23:20Speaker 1: meanwhile with all this code augmented reality? Because that's trend
- 23:24Speaker 1: number two. Tell me about a are augmented reality? Well,
- 23:28Speaker 1: I mean, certainly, you know, uh, ces consumer electronic show
- 23:31Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen was very much taken up with you
- 23:33Speaker 1: know what Facebook was coming out with the Oculus Rift
- 23:36Speaker 1: and with virtual reality headsets, and that turn proved to
- 23:39Speaker 1: be a little bit bit of a bust because the
- 23:41Speaker 1: Rift didn't sell as much as Facebook did still sold
- 23:43Speaker 1: four un a thousand units, but not enough is the
- 23:45Speaker 1: millions that people might have thought. But here, clearly we're
- 23:48Speaker 1: looking at a situation that with you know, with augmented reality,
- 23:51Speaker 1: you know, technologies that are crossing the physical digital divide,
- 23:54Speaker 1: you know, do represent that the future of computing. And
- 23:57Speaker 1: from this standpoint, you know, we're looking at a wide
- 23:59Speaker 1: range of come but he's that be going to be
- 24:01Speaker 1: coming out, you know, we're thinking here that you're looking
- 24:03Speaker 1: at you know, at augmented reality headsets UM. You know,
- 24:08Speaker 1: certainly with regards to UM, you know, all the things
- 24:11Speaker 1: that are being advertised over the Christmas season in terms
- 24:13Speaker 1: of people like being able to use their Galaxy seven
- 24:15Speaker 1: when it wasn't bursting into flames, using it as a
- 24:18Speaker 1: virtual reality headset certainly, and use it an autonomous vehicle.
- 24:23Speaker 1: I guess you could, right because if you're not going
- 24:25Speaker 1: to be driving, you could put on that headset and
- 24:27Speaker 1: just you know, watch a movie, It's quite possible. I
- 24:29Speaker 1: mean from the standpoint that you're looking at automated vehicles.
- 24:32Speaker 1: Once they get into a highway, they probably will be
- 24:34Speaker 1: have a fully automated control system. So from that standpoint,
- 24:38Speaker 1: the person who is the otherwise driver is free to
- 24:40Speaker 1: do pretty much whatever they want. It could be augmented reality,
- 24:43Speaker 1: it could be virtual reality. I think I'm going to
- 24:45Speaker 1: need all those how all those realities to help me navigate.
- 24:49Speaker 1: And also David Garritty, thank you very much for coming
- 24:52Speaker 1: in and spending time. He's the chief executive of g
- 24:54Speaker 1: v A Research, a columnist for investor Pedia, and he
- 24:57Speaker 1: can be followed on Twitter at the g v A Research.
- 25:06Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg p L podcast. You
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- 25:20Speaker 1: Twitter at Lisa Abramo. It's one before the podcast. You
- 25:24Speaker 1: can always catch us worldwide on Bloomberg Radio.