{"id":35635,"date":"2023-07-14T11:02:04","date_gmt":"2023-07-14T15:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifintechworld.com\/banking\/gen-ai-is-the-worlds-greatest-experiment-in-anarchy\/"},"modified":"2023-07-14T11:02:05","modified_gmt":"2023-07-14T15:02:05","slug":"gen-ai-is-the-worlds-greatest-experiment-in-anarchy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ifintechworld.com\/?p=35635","title":{"rendered":"Gen AI Is The World\u2019s Greatest Experiment In Anarchy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In October of 2022, Goldman Sachs started an internal organization called Applied Innovation. The thesis behind its creation was that the intersection between geopolitics and technology is increasingly determinative to the way that the world will evolve. The company also theorized that the way money and value will move around the world is set to change significantly in the next 10 to 15 years.<\/p>\n

One of the co-heads of the Applied Innovation organization is George Lee. He has been with Goldman Sachs for nearly 29 years and has had numerous consequential technology roles at the company, including Partner and Co-Head of Global Technology, Media and Telecom Banking, as well as co-CIO, a role he held for four years prior to taking on his current responsibilities.<\/p>\n

Lee noted that the company refers to his group as \u201capplied innovation\u201d to differentiate it from a research and development lab. This group is intended to develop ideas that tangibly impact and benefit Goldman Sachs\u2019 customers and its broader ecosystem. The team is not shooting for prototypes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want Goldman Sachs to be both facilitator of [innovation] and a leader in [innovation], to do as much as we can inside the four walls of the firm to elevate and encourage [innovation], but also take the opportunity, potentially, to build businesses outside our four walls that participate in lead in that area,\u201d Lee said. \u201cFor us, innovation is a story about differentiation. That can come in the form of building new platforms. It can come in the form of engaging clients in new ways. It can come in the form of thought leadership that inspires our clients to think differently about the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Lee\u2019s co-head of Applied Innovation is Jared Cohen, who is also the bank\u2019s President of Global Affairs. Cohen has had a remarkably varied career. He was a Rhodes Scholar who spent the early part of his career at the United States Department of State working on policy planning before spending more than eight years at Google, both as a director of Google Ideas and as the chief advisor to Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of the company.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeopolitics and technology are these twin seismic areas that are creating more change than they have in the last two decades,\u201d Cohen said. He noted that an extended period of hyper-globalization is a contributing factor. Where some might think COVID was the death knell for it, though, he believes that it ended several years prior to 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just took a global pandemic to reveal a lot about the supply chain,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cIt took a war in Ukraine to reveal a lot about dollar dominance. It took escalating tensions between the U.S. and China to realize that despite the fact that there are winners from globalization, there are no real winners.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rise of \u2018geopolitical swing states\u2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Cohen dismissed the shibboleth that the rivalry between the U.S. and China is akin to the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. \u201cFirst of all, it’s unprecedented for a country’s most formidable adversary to also be their largest trading partner,\u201d he said. \u201cWe’ve never had that in history. Second, this doesn’t have the same ideological component as the Cold War. Third, neither country is trying to destroy the other. It’s not in either country’s interest. This isn’t communism versus capitalism. It’s a competitive coexistence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cohen noted that neither country can gain an extra edge without relying on other countries. The major powers are, in fact, constrained. This provides remarkable leverage for what Cohen refers to as \u201cgeopolitical swing states.\u201d These swing states have a momentary period of influence based on the combination of their stability and certain economic advantages.<\/p>\n

This is not about a country swinging toward the United States or China; it is the opposite. These geopolitical swing states recognize that they have an opportunity based on their economic advantage, giving them agency to swing on an issue-by-issue basis. Examples include:<\/p>\n