Garry Kasparov's Blog, page 8

Meet the Russian Shadow Delegation in Munich | Politico | February 18, 2023

At this year’s @MunSecConf, organisers spurned a delegation from the Russian government, but the country’s opposition politicians and activists, incl. Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63, have been welcomed.

by @jamiewrit @POLITICOEurope https://t.co/oB0LTtL1nf

— Mikhail Khodorkovsky (English) (@mbk_center) February 19, 2023

This article is a reprint. You can read the original at Politico.

By Jamie Dettmer

“MUNICH — “I’ve discovered I’m popular with Munich taxi drivers,” chortled Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He’s surprised they recognize him. They have been peppering him with questions about the future of Russia and whether its President Vladimir Putin will resort to nuclear weapons or can remain in power.

They aren’t the only ones curious to get Khodorkovsky’s answers here at the Munich Security Conference. In the margins of the conference Khodorkovsky, former Russian tycoon, onetime political prisoner and now a leading Putin critic, is being sought out. And in bilateral chats, to the last query about whether Putin can hold on to power, Khodorkovsky says the only way the Russian leader will is if the West offers a helping hand by losing its nerve, engaging in premature negotiations and pushing Ukraine into a dubious deal.

“Let’s call it Minsk 6,” he tells me as I sit with him and other Russian opposition figures in a hotel bar after an exhausting day in the bustling Bavarian capital. The bar is full of other huddles deep in earnest discussion.

While conference organizers spurned a delegation from the Russian government, Russia’s opposition politicians and activists, including former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov and former independent Duma deputy Dmitry Gudkov, have been welcomed. Khodorkovsky’s first session was packed out.

Ukraine’s leaders remain wary of Russia’s dissidents, arguing they aren’t immune from chauvinism and “largely ignored the eight years of war waged against us, even before the February invasion,” as Ukrainian lawmaker Lesia Vasylenko recently told me. “In order to be a Russian whom we can trust,” Vasylenko said, “you have to really prove that you’re not just against your own regime in Russia, but you oppose the war in Ukraine and that you stand for all the values Ukraine is defending — namely territorial integrity, Ukraine’s independence within the internationally recognized borders.”

Here in Munich, though, what Khodorkovsky and the others have been saying is music to the ears of the Ukrainians. On the spectrum between hard-liners and doubters who worry about escalation, they are among the most militant and are determined to bolster Western nerve and dispel fears of nuclear escalation.

It goes back to Khodorkovsky’s “Minsk 6.” As ever, he argues in a methodical way, inviting his interlocutor to follow his argument step by step in imitation of the Socratic method, asking and answering questions to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions.

Some Western leaders have expressed their worries to him about a coup in Moscow. They are fearful that Putin will be replaced by someone worse. To this, Khodorkovsky says it can’t get any worse. He trawls through his cell phone to show me a bizarre video clip posted to the internet where one of Putin’s top nuclear advisers enthusiastically discusses how Russia will soon be able to racially improve future generations by cloning and incubating through planned eugenics. Presumably the dissident gene will be extracted.

He senses some in the West want negotiations, are putting out feelers and are under the impression Putin might want soon to negotiate. “They’re testing the waters,” he says. But he is adamant that talks would end badly for Ukraine, the West and Russians.

“Let us assume we have negotiations for a peaceful settlement. Let’s call it Minsk 6,” Khodorkovsky says, a hypothetical resurrection of the Minsk agreements that sought to end the war in Donbas but that were declared dead by Putin on February 22 last year, days before he launched his invasion.

He went on: “What does Putin get from this? He says, okay, I get to keep Crimea and give me all of Luhansk and Donetsk and I’ll return most of what I captured along the Black Sea coast, but leave me a corridor to Crimea. Let’s say Zelenskyy is squeezed and agrees to negotiate. You would destabilize Ukraine, which would be thrown into civil conflict as 87 percent of Ukrainians would not stomach such a deal — it would have the equivalent effect of, say, if Zelenskyy had taken up the American offer at the start of the war and taken a lift out of the country.”

Khodorkovsky outlines what would then happen. Putin would regroup, mobilize more, and draft people in the occupied territories, build up his arsenal and replenish his depleted munitions. The Russian leader would then accuse the Ukrainians of not holding up their part of Minsk 6, as civil conflict raged in Ukraine, which he would say is a threat to Russians in the occupied territories and likely there would be occasional attacks on border posts staged or otherwise.

Dmitry Medvedev recently warned that Moscow’s defeat in Ukraine could spark a nuclear war | Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images

“You see Putin has no choice but to wage wars. His base of support now is restricted to the the so-called national patriots — to get more support, he needs to improve the economic well-being of Russians and he can’t do so because of corruption and cronyism and things like that,” Khodorkovsky says. At the same time, he would have to deal with the destroyed regions of Ukraine he occupies, and he’s faced with Western sanctions “and nobody will be in a hurry to lift them.” And his base of support will say he has failed to de-Nazify Ukraine or get NATO to move away from Russia’s borders.

“He will have absolutely no choice. He will have to start a new war. Only now his eyes are going to be on NATO countries, mainly the Baltics,” Khodorkovsky concludes.

After Khodorkovsky breaks off to talk with more interlocutors, Dmitry Gudkov tells me he agrees with his compatriot. And he also shares his view that it is unlikely Putin will resort to using tactical nuclear weapons, despite the threats and saber-rattling and comments by the likes of Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s sidekick and now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council.

Medvedev recently warned that Moscow’s defeat in Ukraine could spark a nuclear war. “The defeat of a nuclear power in a conventional war may trigger a nuclear war,” he said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. Gudkov sees such threats as empty but an exercise in intimidation aimed at frightening doubters and faint hearts in the West, and strengthening their hand in urging a winding down and cautious calibration of support for Ukraine.

But Gudkov says Western leaders should hammer home a frequent warning of their own to everyone in Russia’s nuclear chain of command. “They should say repeatedly, ‘we know exactly who you are and where you live and if you push any buttons, we will target and get you — and you will never escape justice and revenge’,” says Gudkov.

Medvedev is one of Putin’s lieutenants who draws special derision from the Russian dissidents in Munich. Once keen to present himself as a moderate, Western-tilted modernizer and reformer, his recent furious tirades have prompted many in the West to scratch their heads and ponder, “Whatever happened to Dmitry Medvedev?”

The overall view is that he has gone through a makeover to accord with his master’s voice but is also positioning himself to be more relevant, much like the technocrat Sergey Kiriyenko, the former prime minister and current first deputy chief of staff in the Presidential Administration. Kiriyenko has taken to macho-posturing around the occupied territories of Ukraine’s Donbas decked out in camouflage.

But Medvedev’s comments have had a special poisonous and extreme flavor of their own. He’s described Joe Biden as a “strange grandfather with dementia,” dubbed EU leaders as “lunatics,” and promised Russia will ensure Ukraine “disappears from the map.” All his genocidal rhetoric contrasts with the hip image he once presented with his love for blogging and gadgets and a visit to Silicon Valley to be handed a new iPhone 4 by Steve Jobs.

So crazed has Medvedev seemed in recent months that it provokes Anastasia Burakova, founder of the NGO Kovcheg (The Ark), which supports Russian political refugees overseas, to joke that he “must be an American spy using his tirades to send secret information to the CIA.” Or maybe Putin wants him to say especially mad things “to make him look sensible as a way to say to the West look, I could be replaced by someone worse than me.”

And here we come full circle. Ultimately how long Putin rules will largely be determined by whether the West holds its nerve, say the Russians in Munich.”

“Russia Reimagined: Visions for a Democratic Future” | Munich Security Conference | February 18, 2023

Video archive. https://t.co/DIUE553B9R

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) February 19, 2023

Mr. Kasparov @Kasparov63 honestly describes the inconvenient truth of perspective on this war. Anyone who still demands “peace talks” with Russia should listen to this man pic.twitter.com/laL5Vm85tb

— Sabi (@Sabine_Messner) February 18, 2023

On Saturday, Feb 18, from 10:00 pm ‘Night Cap’ Session is scheduled
‘Russia Reimagined: Visions for a Democratic Future’

Speakers:
Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63
Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Zhanna Nemtsova @ZhannaNemtsova
Irina Shcherbakova

Moderator: Katja Gloger#MSC2023 @MunSecConf pic.twitter.com/x5S3Y3nQTc

— Mikhail Khodorkovsky (English) (@mbk_center) February 17, 2023

@Kasparov63 at Munich conf.:
"Dictatorships are based on mythes, the Putin's myth is WW2… The West is also responsible for this myth by not admitting that Stalin is responsible for the WW2 as Hitler."
So right! Victor Suvorov struggled to publish Icebreaker book in the West… pic.twitter.com/XbVwX4Qq51

— Homo Cogitans (@HCogitans) February 20, 2023

Here is what’s on the agenda @MunSecConf today
Summary by @nytimes:

10 to 11 pm, A “night cap” session will explore the idea of “Russia Reimagined,” with input from Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63; Mikhail Khodorkovsky; and Irina Shcherbakova#MSC2023 https://t.co/DGu7tsQNQN

— Mikhail Khodorkovsky (English) (@mbk_center) February 18, 2023

It used to be Sergey Lavrov in a primetime session. This year at @MunSecConf, session on the main program is a night cap on “Russia’s democratic future.” This format is much better indeed: to have a sober conversation about future one needs booze. #MSC2023 pic.twitter.com/CtZ3xDuSeF

— Alexander Gabuev 陳寒士 (@AlexGabuev) February 17, 2023

This article is a reprint. You can read the original at the New York Times.

“10 to 11 p.m. A “night cap” session will explore the idea of “Russia Reimagined,” with input from Garry Kasparov, the chess champion and activist; Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oil oligarch jailed by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia; and Irina Shcherbakova, a founding member of Memorial, a rights organization that received a Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.”

‘Putin is Propping up Narco-Trafficking Across the Globe,’ says Venezuelan Opposition Leader | The Kyiv Post | February 16, 2023

“Russian opposition leader @Kasparov63, who for two decades has been an outspoken critic of #Putin, is a close collaborator of @leopoldolopez, with whom he shares his view that “Vladimir Putin’s rule is a dire threat to democracies everywhere.” https://t.co/H9HkXERLZs #Ukraine

— Freedom Today (@FreedomTodayNet) February 17, 2023

This article is a reprint. You can read the original at the Kyiv Post.

By Jason Jay Smart

“The 51-year-old Venezuelan loses no time before unpacking what is on his mind: How to save the world from a criminal network of “kleptocratic autocrats” who are behind not only the war in Ukraine, but also some of the world’s most notorious crimes and ruthless dictators.

According to Leopoldo López, the current leadership of his native Venezuela – like China, Russia, Iran, Belarus, Nicaragua, and Cuba – is part of a large network of dictatorships that have linked together to illicitly make money while maintaining totalitarian power over their countries, despite the often expressed wishes of their citizens for a different path. However, these tyrants are not only a scourge to their own populations, they are also destabilizing the global system.

“The only way to stabilize the world is to promote freedom and democracy,” keeping countries out of the “kleptocratic network that works together to undermine freedom and democracy.”

Masterminding this criminal network, argues the opposition leader, “is Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

Rodrigo Figueredo, an exiled Venezuelan human rights activist says that the fight against Putin and Nicolás Maduro are two sides of the same coin, in that “Maduro and Putin are the same and operate using the same authoritarian dynamic to attack democracy and the free world.”

A review of sanctioned countries finds that many of the nations López mentions are also among the most sanctioned countries in the world: Russia, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Myanmar, and Cuba.

Justice must be done, US vice-president tells Russia, accusing it of ‘crime against humanity’.

A former Ambassador of Venezuela’s internationally recognized interim government, Estefanía Meléndez says that the collaboration between rogue regimes gives impetus to why the West should be imposing more sanctions against Moscow and its proxies and opposing attempts to normalize relations, as is now happening with the regime in Caracas. Any attempt to now take the heat off of the Maduro government is tantamount to allowing “Putin to escape some of the economic pressure he is under” and to continuing to “expand Russia’s influence in Latin America.”

Russian opposition leader Garry Kasparov, who for two decades has been an outspoken critic of Putin, is a close collaborator of López, with whom he shares his view that “Vladimir Putin’s rule is a dire threat to democracies everywhere.” The two democrats linked up this past November to hold the inaugural event of the World Liberty Congress (WLC), an organization committed to helping pro-democracy leaders find effective means of resisting dictatorships.

The initial WLC event this past November highlighted that spearheading efforts to break up the international consortium of dictators engaged in gross criminal misconduct is not just daunting, but also risky. Among the attendees at the kick-off in Vilnius was Thulani Maseko, a human rights lawyer from Eswatini (formerly Swaziland).

Three months after the Congress, this past January, two days before Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived on a state visit to the small African country of Maseko’s birth, the activist-lawyer was gunned down by unknown assailants in front of his family. For months Maseko had been receiving death threats which he attributed to the dictatorship that controls Eswatini.

Stephen Nix, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer who has worked in pro-democracy movements in the post-Soviet space for over three decades, agrees that the Putin regime has been instrumental in suppressing democratic movements across the globe, not just in the 15 former Soviet republics, saying that “Putin views democracy as a threat to his ability to maintain control in his own country.”

There is another tie that binds oppressive regimes which has been called “the shop to help broken dictatorships”: a team of Kremlin-backed political consultants, military experts, PR wizards, economic advisers, and private military companies who parachute into troubled dictatorial regimes to help challenged autocrats maintain power.

“You hear of Russian support for African dictators via the military, kleptocratic network, economic support, diplomatic support, cyber support, and also the manipulation of social media and other mass communication,” the Venezuelan comments, adding that autocrats are united also, “of course,” by being shareholders “in the drug-trade.”

López, who is incredibly optimistic, despite having spent years as a political prisoner for trumped-up crimes decried by the international community, repeats his hope that “the light of justice will shine on the crimes of Putin,” for being a war criminal on top of his other crimes.

How realistic is it that the international courts will take up the case against Putin?

The youthful statesman retorted that “Maduro is being prosecuted at the International Criminal Court (ICC). However, according to Putin, first ‘we must win the war in Ukraine, then there will be a change in Russia towards democracy.’ In which case, Putin and his henchmen would undoubtedly need to face international justice for their crimes.”

Maduro, a former bus driver, who became the President of Venezuela in 2013 following the death of Putin-allied strongman Hugo Chavez, has been successful in maintaining power, despite phenomenal economic problems domestically “due to the support he receives from Putin.” This assistance “started many years ago with the military and the supply of arms, training, and support to Venezuela – which today is an entanglement of organized crime, diplomacy, and different sectors,” López emphasizes.

The Harvard educated Venezuelan’s views align with many other Latin America-watchers who have observed that “Venezuela is one of the most important pass-throughs for cocaine that is manufactured in Colombia,” and is shipped and traded with the help of “non-state groups – like the Wagner Group,” which “has been instrumental in the narcotics trade.”

The Bolivarian Regime of Maduro has openly boasted that the Western-sanctioned Wagner Group is present in Venezuela. The careful alignment of the world’s dictators is why the opposition leader says that he and his allies are not up against only Maduro, but in fact, “are facing Xi [Jinping of China], we are facing Putin, we are facing the mullahs from Iran – because they are working together and they have created a network of autocratic regimes to expand their sphere of influence globally,” which should be “understood as a global structure of autocrats.” At every turn, these anti-democratic leaders receive the backing of the Kremlin.

What can the West do in the face of a Kremlin that is so fervently hostile to not only democracy, but the rule of law?

“The US should be promoting political and democratic change in Russia,” because “there will be a positive ripple effect across the entire world,” he says.

“It is clear that we all must support the Ukrainians. Since this war began we have prayed to God that Ukraine will win and that this will lead to a path for freedom for many peoples across the world: Ukraine’s struggle is a fight for freedom,” the native Venezuelan insists, continuing that a Ukrainian victory will set off a chain reaction.

“Once Ukraine wins the war and Putin is defeated… it will bring Venezuela closer to freedom and democracy – as the fight for freedom in Ukraine is also the fight for freedom for us in Venezuela,” he affirms.

To achieve this, would López go as far as to say that Washington should back the overthrow of the Putin regime?

“Yes, absolutely. I truly believe so… the downfall of Putin would be in the interest of not only the United States, but of every country: We must beat Putin.”

The Real Threat From ChatGPT Isn’t AI…It’s Centaurs | PCGamer | February 13, 2023

From Kasparov’s chess career to Steve Jobs’ bicycle, we already know how to approach these new AI tools. The real question: Will you master them before your competition does? https://t.co/WdrN5CT3yn

— PCMag (@PCMag) February 13, 2023

This article is a reprint. You can read the original at PCGamer.

By Brian Westover

“By now, you have no doubt heard of ChatGPT, the artificially intelligent (AI) chatbot that just about everyone online is talking about. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re probably one of the millions of people already trying out the new tool, experimenting with its capabilities, playing with its responses, and finding all the fun and strange ways that generative AI can frustrate you.

Even if you haven’t used ChatGPT, you’ve surely read about it. A lot of digital ink has been spilled about the new chat bot, even though it’s only been available to the public for about three months. Since then, everyone from workers to students to cybercriminals have found new ways to use and abuse ChatGPT. The majority of coverage is a strange mix of over-inflated hype and profound pessimism, insisting that AI is coming for our jobs (or letting you make money without a job), and that no one is safe.

Both of these views are missing the point.

Hype Cycles and Doomsayers: Both Are Wrong

It makes sense that such a profoundly disruptive tool would generate such a dramatic response. The hype cycle(Opens in a new window) is real, and the temptation to cash in on a trend is never something passed up by a certain segment. Just try searching for information about ChatGPT on YouTube, and you’ll be inundated with videos promising that you can make millions with ChatGPT, without working at all! They’re also looking for easy money—from you, and any other mark they can con into buying the book, course, or product they’re selling. As ever, the wise move is to ignore these con artists.

Doomsayers are also common whenever any disruptive technology arrives. Ironically, these naysayers are nearly robotic in their frowny forecasting. They all seem to have two things in common: First, they are always quick to downplay what’s happening, or to overemphasize the negatives. Second, and perhaps more important, they are almost always wrong.

Remember when folks said this wouldn’t amount to anything? (Credit: Dave Einsel/Getty Images)

In the past, this same negative inclination led experts to pooh-pooh the idea that the internet(Opens in a new window) would ever be important in our lives, or that the iPhone was more than a iPod that could make calls. There’s always a Blockbuster ready to say no(Opens in a new window) when Netflix is available to buy.

 

However, this opinion isn’t meant to be over-inflated hype or unimpressed cynicism. Instead, I prefer to be skeptical of the skeptics, and ignore the hype machine entirely. I want to inject some reality into how people think about the coming wave of AI tools.

I’m here to talk about bicycles—but, I will start by talking about chess.

Our Kasparov Moment

In 1996, chess world champion and Grandmaster Garry Kasparov faced off against Deep Blue, an advanced chess playing computer built by a team at IBM. He won, just as humans had been beating computers for decades before. That’s why you likely don’t know about the 1996 match—instead, you more likely know about 1997.

Advanced Chess creator Garry Kasparov (Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

In a rematch with a re-tooled Deep Blue, Kasparov made real, notable history, as the first top-ranked human player on Earth to lose to a machine(Opens in a new window). It was a pivotal moment for the progression of computational thinking, as it proved that the statistical brute force a computer can leverage was capable of defeating the very best that a skilled human could do on their own.

 

 

At the time, people experienced a similar cycle of hype-filled and apocalyptic news coverage. As journalists and pundits feared that the game of chess was over, tech optimists cheered that we could turn over all of our thinking to the coming wave of intelligent machines. The cold embrace of pure logic would change humanity forever.

Yet chess didn’t disappear. Kasparov’s reign as world champion continued for several years until his retirement, and chess may be more popular now than ever before. And this, despite the fact that many chess-playing phone apps today can outperform anything Deep Blue was capable of so many years ago.

Steve Jobs’ Bicycle for the Mind

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs once famously called the personal computer a “bicycle for the mind(Opens in a new window),” explaining that while humans are outpaced in speed and energy efficiency by any number of animals in the natural world, a human on a bicycle handily beats them all. In Jobs’ thinking, and in several subsequent Apple commercials, the message was clear: Humans are tool users, and better tools make us better humans.

Steve Jobs’ first prototype for his ‘bicycle for the mind’ (Credit: RR Auction)

While a decade of tech journalism has taught me to question much of the marketing around any tech product, that central concept has stuck with me all my life. Technology augments and enhances what humans are capable of.

 

Yes, the quirks of technological progress, both the expanded capabilities and the practical and conceptual limitations of new tools, shape human society and culture in turn. I’m not saying we ignore the potential misuses of technology, or fail to consider the problems inherent in any new tool. I am saying that smarter tools enable us to progress above and beyond the limitations of the past. And, if we are smart in how we apply them, they can help us not “merely” at a grand societal level, but on a personal level.

AI presents us with a new, more capable bicycle. We’re ditching the huge front wheel of the penny-farthing and adding gear shifts, disk brakes, shock-absorbing forks and frames, and GPS directions. Like the real bicycle, these tools are rapidly evolving. However, the human still has to pedal and steer the bike, and AI tools have to be powered by human thinking and human ingenuity. The bike just helps the human move faster.

Smarter Tools Need Smarter Users

Any tool, properly applied, increases human capability—but more powerful tools will lengthen our reach and increase our impact even when we use them poorly, and that’s what’s scary. Smarter tools demand that we be smart in how we use them.

We’re already getting our first taste of how the next generation of tools can be used and misused. College kids are trying to turn in AI-generated papers. Script kiddies are getting powerful coding tools to make malware. Short-sighted executives are pushing AI-generated media, oblivious to the fact that it may be full of inaccurate info, or even plagiarized content. And, my personal favorite: Somebody posted a ChatGPT-generated job description(Opens in a new window) without even reading it first.

AI presents us with a new, more capable bicycle….however, the human still has to pedal and steer the bike.

People use new tools in misguided and, sometimes, bafflingly stupid ways—it may be unintentional, or on purpose. It might be for the “lulz,” to experiment with what the new toy can do, or to get away with something. We’re human, and sometimes humans do dumb things. That’s how we roll.

But, if you want to make the most of a new tool, the answer isn’t to run and hide from it. Let’s go back to talking about chess.

Kasparov’s Centaur

In 1998, just a year after his defeat to Deep Blue, Garry Kasparov was again at the center of a seismic change in the chess world. Instead of abandoning the game he loved, or capitulating to the idea of unbeatable machines, he chose to adapt by embracing new technology. He created a new version of the game called Advanced Chess(Opens in a new window).

This new approach would pair a human player with one or more chess computers, working as a team. Borrowing an image from mythology, the human intellect steering the computer workhorse was called a “centaur team.” And within a few years, centaur teams made up of amateur players and midrange computers were beating both human grandmasters and top-of-the-line chess computers.

The answer to the questions posed by today’s advancements has already been found. Human intellect and creativity, paired with powerful tools, is the winning combination. It always has been.

Computers are tools, and as powerful and as fascinating as the latest AI-driven chatbots appear, they are still tools. They need a human to steer their capabilities, to evaluate the output, and to apply them intelligently. Somebody has to ride the bike.

The problems we’re going to run into in the near future are going to come from forgetting that relationship. We will see businesses harmed by foolishly trying to replace human writers with generative content, when the answer is human writers enabled by generative content. We’re going to see human artists fret over the end of artwork as image generators make it cheap and easy to create impressive visuals from a simple text prompt. But art isn’t going anywhere, and the essentials of creative composition, finding ways to surprise an audience, and having the skill to recognize what’s good and bad, and fine-tune it accordingly, those will all still rest in the hands of humans.

 

Just as chess didn’t end when Kasparov lost to Deep Blue, math didn’t end with the advent of the calculator. People feared that having a personal device that can handle all of the complex calculations that students were supposed to do would destroy the study of math. It didn’t.

Human intellect and creativity, paired with powerful tools, is the winning combination. It always has been.

Instead, mathematicians set down their slide rules and picked up their calculators, and they were able to advance the study of mathematics beyond what could be done previously. Students still study math. Mathematicians are still needed in the world, perhaps more than ever. And the humble calculator became the personal computer, which became the smartphone, which became whatever device you’re reading this on right now (probably a phone).

Once powerful machines come along, humanity doesn’t go away. Some Luddites may smash the looms in fear for their jobs—others embrace it.

I’m a Centaur, and You Can Be One, Too

With tools like ChatGPT available to the public only within the last few months, and other generative technologies, like Mid Journey and Stable Diffusion, arriving only last year, we are still in the very early days of an AI revolution. But make no mistake: It is a revolution, a genuine step change in the progress of technology.

I’ll confess: I use ChatGPT. A lot. Every day.

But first, to put readers (and my editor) at ease: I don’t use it for writing the articles and reviews you read under my byline—because that’s my job. Anything published under my byline is 100% written by a human. And not just any human, but me, in particular.

You, too, can become more effective with AI. (Credit: CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

However, AI can do many, many things better and faster than I can, freeing me up to focus on the parts of my job that I’m uniquely capable of doing. So, I use ChatGPT and other AI tools to enhance my work processes. I’ve used it to build custom tools for data gathering and analysis that I use in my job. ChatGPT is also excellent at summarizing complex information, so that I can learn more technical information more quickly. I use it for brainstorming, I use it to fine-tune my planning, and I use it to enhance my life outside of work.

 

Ever wanted someone to suggest a recipe, turn that into a shopping list, and then organize the shopping list by section of the grocery store? ChatGPT can do that.

The question is, are we learning to use these new tools? It’s easy to hide from the new. There is some bliss in the ignorance of what a tool can do, and what opportunities it opens up. But you shouldn’t be afraid of an AI taking your job. You should be far more worried about another human, using AI, because they might take your job. If they’re halfway capable with the new tools, they’ll do your job better than you do. After all, amateurs are beating grandmasters these days, and no matter how much exercise you do, you won’t outrun a human who’s on a bicycle.

In the long run, the centaur wins. And, at that point, you need to decide whether you’ll be the human at the front—or the one looking at the horse’s rear end.”

The Third Annual Kasparov Chess Foundation University Cup | February 4-5, 2023

Garry @Kasparov63 will make an appearance to greet all participants on-line and will join commentators on one of rounds at the 3rd Annual Kasparov Chess Foundation University Cup (4-5 Feb). GM @GmNaroditsky and IM @hellokostya will provide live commentary during the tournament. pic.twitter.com/lifaIgMZx2

— Kasparov Chess (@Kasparov_Chess) January 31, 2023

The 3rd Annual Kasparov Chess Foundation University Cup took place online on February 4 – 5, 2023. 116 teams participated in the tournament, which was streamed on https://t.co/xZineWKU8a . The final standings will be announced later today. @Kasparov63 @GmNaroditsky @hellokostya pic.twitter.com/NK8GFr09PT

— Kasparov Chess (@Kasparov_Chess) February 6, 2023

KCF University #Chess Cup will take place on February 4 – 5, 2023, on https://t.co/73HucMbUnq platform.
First place winning team will receive the KCF University Cup and exclusive online training session with World Champion @Kasparov63!
Details https://t.co/6C4ltca7zE pic.twitter.com/0Tuk6Q5dcF

— Kasparov Chess (@Kasparov_Chess) January 8, 2023

Former World Champion @Kasparov63 has joined the stream! https://t.co/TIZSCiyrLd pic.twitter.com/2Do2sQFNRJ

— ChessDojo (@chess_dojo) February 5, 2023

Garry Kasparov “Victory for Ukraine and Freedom for Russia” | Kyiv Post | February 3, 2023

“Victory for Ukraine and freedom for Russia are linked events,” @Kasparov63 tells @KyivPost. https://t.co/Q4Ak5ICoCE

— Democracy Digest (@demdigest) February 3, 2023

This article is a reprint. You can read the original at the Kyiv Post.

By Jason Jay Smart

““Well, it’s about time!” laughs Kasparov, responding to how he takes the news that his Free Russia Forum, based in Vilnius, Lithuania, was deemed as a “threat to the constitutional order and security” by the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office.

Freshly arrived home from a tour of Europe, where he had been pushing for wider sanctions against the “Putin Regime and its enablers,” Kasparov sounds energetic and keen to discuss his upcoming plans to support Ukraine.

Credit: Wikipedia

Kasparov, who has been an outspoken supporter of democracy and human rights worldwide, has not been quiet about the war in Ukraine. Unlike some in the Russian democratic opposition, Free Russia Forum, which he founded in 2016, has always had as a tenet that to be a member of the organization, one must reject the illegal occupation of Ukraine’s Crimea and Donbas. 

Kasparov, personally, has gone even further and takes an active role in traversing the globe to meet with high-level officials across Europe and the U.S. to identify new ways in which sanctions can be implemented against Russia and military support given to Ukraine.

From Kyiv Post interview with Kasparov

The lawmakers also approved a resolution to recognize Russian private military companies as terrorist organizations.

This active approach, using his fame and high profile to reach the global levers of power to assist in thwarting Putin, has captured the eye of not only the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office, but also of global leaders. 

On Feb 2, the Munich Security Forum, often called the “Davos of Defense,” announced that in addition to not inviting Russian officials to the event, they would be inviting Kasparov and his long-time ally in the fight for democracy in Russia, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Khodorkovsky, like Kasparov, has been in the democratic opposition to Putin since long before many got on the “stop Putin bandwagon.”

Khodorkovsky, formerly an executive of Russia’s largest oil company, was held in prison for a decade under what the international community decried as politically motivated charges. In 2013, following increased international pressure, Khodorkovsky was pardoned by Putin. Since then, the former prisoner has dedicated himself to initiatives to oppose the Putin Regime.

Credit: Wikipedia. Kasparov after winning the FIDE World Championship title in 1985

Ivan Tyutrin, who helped to establish the Free Russia Forum, sees the Russian Prosecutor’s actions as “a good sign.” He said, “It is proof that we are doing good work. We are creating problems for the regime. However, we were prepared for this to happen.”

But why do Russian authorities routinely go to such lengths to slow down the Free Russia Forum? Chuckling, Tyutrin retorts that “they correctly consider us to be their enemies.”

Kasparov thinks that the Russian General Prosecutor’s persecution of his organization, this time, was just a matter of time as Russian authorities are “so alarmed because of what we [Kasparov and Khodorkovsky] said in Foreign Affairs: we offered a real plan to get Russia out of the Putin abyss and what to do for the future. They worry about the power of our arguments.” 

The Chess Grandmaster is referring to his Jan. 23, 2023 piece in Foreign Affairs, a strongly worded thesis arguing that “Putin’s effort to restore Russia’s lost empire is destined to fail. The moment is therefore ripe for a transition to democracy and a devolution of power to the regional levels. But for such a political transformation to take place, Putin must be defeated militarily in Ukraine. A decisive loss on the battlefield would pierce Putin’s aura of invincibility and expose him as the architect of a failing state, making his regime vulnerable to challenge from within.”

Credit: Wikipedia

Russian authorities were likely less than enthralled to read that Kasparov and Khodorkovsky, in one of the world’s premier journals of international affairs, called for Putin to not only lose in Ukraine, but to lay out a plan following Putin’s demise that would include signing “a peace agreement with Ukraine, recognizing the country’s 1991 borders and justly compensating it for the damage caused by Putin’s war.”

If things work out as the duo hopes, from there all of Putin’s dreams would further collapse as they argue that a post-Putin Russia would need to “reject the imperial policies of the Putin regime, both within Russia and abroad, including by ceasing all formal and informal support for pro-Russian entities in the countries of the former Soviet Union,” and then to “begin to demilitarize Russia.”

Tyutrin agrees with Kasparov and Khodorkovsky’s analysis: “We see that there is a huge irrational fear in the West of what will happen after Putin: Will it create instability? Will Russia’s nukes be loose? But we are prepared for a Putin-less world.”

He adds that for “seven years the Free Russia Forum has a clear plan that we will seek federalization, demilitarization, de-occupation of all Russian-occupied lands… this is the target we have. We are all aiming for this.”

Kasparov has no regrets about his article or the fallout it has received from an unhappy Kremlin or those in the Russian democratic opposition who do not see eye-to-eye with his view. Rather, Kasparov says in response that others in the opposition “talk about the future of Russia in vague terms,” however, “we are talking in specific details – and that is a threat to the Putin regime.”

There are risks that come with espousing such views, the human rights advocate reflects, recalling his former ally and friend, Boris Nemtsov, who was gunned down outside of the Kremlin in 2015.

Credit: CBC (Kasparov and Nemtsov)

Asked if he might want to wrap up the interview after the tiring transatlantic flight, Kasparov laughed, “Rest? You’re kidding, right? I can do that later – I have just sat down to work and have hours more to do today.”

Does Kasparov not see a paradox in the fact that he considers himself a “patriot of Russia’” while calling on the U.S. and Europe to give Ukraine more weapons in order to kill Putin’s soldiers with greater efficiency?

“No, quite the contrary,” he says, “we believe that every true patriot of Russia should be focused on helping Ukraine to win.”

Observers have noted that many who oppose Putin, do not necessarily support Ukraine. Kasparov calls them out by recalling that “you still have the majority of the Russian opposition saying ‘stop the war.’ In our eyes, that means nothing.”

If “stop the war” means nothing, then what should a “patriotic Russian” want?

“In our eyes, victory for Ukraine and freedom for Russia are linked events,” Kasparov says.”

Garry Kasparov: Putin’s attempts to restore Russia’s lost empire destined to fail | MSNBC | February 3, 2023

MSNBC: Garry Kasparov: Putin’s attempts to restore Russia’s lost empire destined to failhttps://t.co/epgP0bqkCk #NewsInVids #NewsInVidsCom #WorldNewsInVids #NewsVideos #NewsInVideos

— Breaking World News In Videos. From NewsInVids.com (@NewsInVids) February 3, 2023

Never time for everything, but a summary. 1) Listen to Ukrainians and people who were right, not those keep being wrong. 2) Ukraine must win, and there is great cost and no benefit in delaying victory by limiting the type of weapons or speed of delivery. https://t.co/Jbtc3AohmF

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) February 3, 2023

Kasparov is one of the smartest strategists on this planet. NATO should move faster and with more resolve. Give Ukraine what they need to win ASAP. #StandWithUkraine https://t.co/IuFdJRWYkn

— Fred Roth (@FredinToronto) February 3, 2023

Watch the full video below on Morning Joe’s YouTube channel.

Opinion | Russia Exiled Them. Big Mistake | Politico | January 29, 2023

The Anti-War Conference of the Free Russia Forum organised by Garry Kasparov & Mikhail Khodorkovsky stated that Putin’s war isn’t just with but with the liberal Western world order. It’s a war over the “basic values” of Western democratic civilisation.https://t.co/xmZcxipeR5

— Mikhail Khodorkovsky (English) (@mbk_center) January 30, 2023

This article is a reprint. You can read the original at Politico.

By Leon Aron

“Leon Aron is resident scholar and director of Russian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and author, most recently, of Roads to the Temple: Truth, Memory, Ideas and Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution, 1987-1991.

When it comes to regime change, there’s an important relationship between regime opponents inside the country, and exiles outside the country. This has played out over and over again in history, particularly in Russia. This dynamic will be important to whatever happens in Russia in the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ill-conceived invasion of Ukraine.

Political exiles rarely lead revolutions. There are two exceptions: Vladimir Lenin in Russia in 1917, and Ayatollah Khomeini 62 years later in Iran. But both returned to their countries when the old regimes were all but gone, the leaders deposed and the prior regime discredited. As Lenin famously put it, the power was lying in the mud on the ground, all one had to do was to pick it up.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has weakened him, just as tsars in the 19th and 20th centuries were weakened by conflicts including the Crimean War and World War I. So when the Putin regime begins to teeter and wobble — whether in yet another instance of the merciless pattern of Russian history unforgiving of military setbacks or because of an anemic economy further degraded by sanctions, oil and gas revenues drying up or all these calamities at once — the most likely to lead the revolution will be the leaders on the ground. Many of those are currently in prison, including Alexei Navalny, serving a nine-and-half-year term, Vladimir Kara-Murza, in his eighth month of imprisonment without trial and facing up to 24 years in prison, or Ilya Yashin, sentenced last week to eight-and-half years. With the Putin regime’s rapidly descending into savagery of a military dictatorship, they might not emerge from jail alive. But even if they don’t survive, others will step forward and when the time comes, the West can lend a crucial hand.

Many of Russia’s opposition leaders are currently in prison, including Alexei Navalny(top), serving a nine-and-half-year term, Vladimir Kara-Murza (bottom left), in his eighth month of imprisonment without trial and facing up to 24 years in prison, or Ilya Yashin(bottom right), sentenced last week to eight-and-half years. | Emin Dzhafarov/Kommersant/AP; Irina Bujor/Kommersant/AP; Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

Yet no revolution succeeds unless the legitimacy of the old regime has been eroded by alternate visions of the country’s present and, even more importantly, its future — ideas persuasive enough for the politically active minority to withdraw their loyalty. (It is always a minority that rebels while all that’s required of the vast majority is not to come to the existing order’s defense.)

Those on the inside of the country can’t do much to disseminate such subversive thoughts. Unlike the revolution overseen by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, whose abolition of censorship allowed glasnost to demolish the Soviet regime’s legitimizing mythology, the anti-Putin movement has to contend with the systematic extirpation of free discourse and independent media by the Kremlin.

We’ve seen this before. Finding himself in a similar bind over a century and a half ago, Alexander Herzen — the founding father of Russian political emigration, brilliant essayist and memoirist, and 19th century revolutionary democrat and socialist — started a magazine called Kolokol (which means “Bell” in English), the first free Russian press in Europe.

Portrait of Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen, the founding father of Russian political emigration, brilliant essayist and memoirist, and 19th century revolutionary democrat and socialist, 1860’s. | Wikimedia Commons

Getting his publication into Russia proved difficult. “If only my words could reach you, toiler and sufferer of the land of Russia!” Herzen wrote. “How well I would teach you to despise your spiritual shepherds, placed over you by the St. Petersburg Synod and [the] tsar…. You hate the landlord, you hate the official, you fear them, and rightly so; but you still believe in the tsar and the bishop … do not believe them. The tsar is with them, and they are his men.” Herzen didn’t live to see the end of Russia’s tsarist imperium, but those who did end it traced their vision back to the writings of exiles like him.

Not much has changed in the last 150 years. Millions of Russians continue to detest incompetent, callous, thieving and corrupt local authorities but heartily approve of the tsar in the Kremlin. But reaching their compatriots, especially the silenced and dispirited anti-war, pro-Western intelligentsia still living in Russia, is much easier today for self-exiled journalists — at least a hundred of whom left just this past year. Although the Russian government has blocked over 180 media outlets as well as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, the toll of many internet “bells” is breaking through the deafening din of the Kremlin propaganda. With many Russians using virtual private networks (VPNs), an estimated 15 percent or more of the population continue to read and watch the same independent Russian journalists they had followed before the invasion.

Every month, millions of Russians visit the sites of the Dozhd (Rain), Novaya Gazeta, and Meduza or follow them on YouTube and Telegram. Along with the Congress-funded Radio Liberty, particularly its flagship 24-hour a day Russian-language ‘Current Time’ program, these outlets provide platforms for some of the finest essayists, opposition politicians, and independent experts inside and outside Russia.

The Latvian and Russian editions of “Novaya Gazeta. Europe” lie on a table. Using VPNs, an estimated 15 percent or more of the population continue to read and watch the same independent Russian journalists they had followed before the invasion. | Alexander Welscher/AP

Emerging from these writings, interviews, videos and news reports is a vision of a post-Putin post-authoritarian, democratic Russia. This vision, if it can take hold in Russia, is a key step needed for Russia’s defeat. In the play “The Coast of Utopia” by Tom Stoppard, Herzen actually raises a glass to Russia’s 1856 defeat in Crimea by La Grand Alliance of the Ottomans, France, and the United Kingdom. Today’s émigré writers and politicians, too, believe that the rise of a free Russia is predicated on the Kremlin’s defeat in Crimea and everywhere else in Ukraine.

No matter what Putin tells the Russian people and the world, this is not a war to secure a neutral Ukraine and save Russia from an imminent NATO aggression. It is a war to the bitter end to eradicate a sovereign Ukrainian state whose very existence as an independent, democratic nation is a threat to Putin’s autocracy. Given his obsession, Leonid Gozman, an opposition politician and leading commentator, argues that a genuine, lasting peace — and not a fraudulent and short-lived ceasefire which Putin is bound to violate — can result only from Russia’s capitulation.

Ilya Ponomarev, a former member of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, the only member of Russia’s parliament to vote against the annexation of Crimea in 2014, is now living in exile. | Celestino Arce/AP

Some Putin opponents go further. Gathering outside Warsaw this past November, a group of exiled politicians called the Congress of People’s Deputies of Russia declared that in addition to ending the occupation of Crimea and other Ukrainian territories, Russia must pay reparations to Ukraine — and give up war criminals for trials. (The Congress was led by Ilya Ponomarev, the only member of Russia’s parliament to vote against the annexation of Crimea in 2014; he’s now living in exile in Ukraine.)

The stakes could not be higher. Another exile organization, the Anti-War Conference of the Free Russia Forum organized by the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former political prisoner, has stated that the conflict is not regional, that Putin’s war is not just with Ukraine but with the liberal Western world order. It is a war over the “basic values” of Western democratic civilization.

Considering their importance to a Russian defeat and a successful outcome of the war, Russia’s political émigrés deserve our support. So far, they have been adept at self-organization and, for the most part, at self-financing. The West’s assistance is needed mostly in lowering or removing bureaucratic barriers. For instance, the U.S. and the EU should be faster at processing temporary year-long visas for political exiles who have found quick but impermanent refuge in countries like Armenia, Georgia, Uzbekistan and Turkey. A recent study by the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think tank, also suggests that Western consulates should be more efficient in issuing work permits and refugee identification papers. Germany and the Czech Republic have already begun designating special categories of immigration for such cases to expedite processing.

Yet the West should avoid arbitrating or taking sides in the inevitable internecine spats within the émigré community. The goal is an opposition that would as closely as possible reflect the diverse segments of the Russian political configuration that are today being flattened under the regime’s deadly weight. Herzen, again, shows the way in seeking to be as inclusive as possible and welcoming all those who were “not dead to human feelings” into “a single vast protest against the evil regime,” as Herzen’s biographer Isaiah Berlin put it.

Members of the local Russian diaspora in Krakow, Poland participated in silent anti-war demonstration against Vladimir Putin and the war with Ukraine at the Adam Mickiewicz Monument in Krakow’s Main Square. Oct. 2, 2022. | Artur Widak/Getty Images

Nor should the West impose political tests; there should be only two criteria for acceptance and support of the political émigrés. One is an unconditional affirmation of Russia’s borders as of January 1, 1992. The other is a broad, deep, persistent and patient de-Stalinization and de-imperialization of Russia — cultural, educational, historiographic. Of course, it would be up to the Russians themselves to decide on how to accomplish these mammoth tasks. We can only hope that, resuming where the sincere but fitful glasnost assault on totalitarianism and the Soviet empire left off, a future Russia that’s at peace with its own people and the world would systematically expunge the foundation of the house that Putin built: Russia as a providential power, a “Third Rome” with a special God-given mission in the world; the equation of greatness with fear and terror; the primacy of state over individual; and the cult of violence.

As in every modern mass migration, the civic-minded among the Russian immigrants — the human rights activists, bloggers, environmentalists and members of the political opposition — are a tiny minority: an estimated 10,000 men and women out of as many as 1.4 million who have left their country since the beginning of Putin’s third presidency in 2012. Yet the scale of their effort to edify and inspire has already by far exceeded their size.

“We have saved the honor of the Russian name,” Herzen wrote to his fellow self-exile, 19th century writer Ivan Turgenev. That, ultimately, is why Russia’s political émigrés deserve the West’s admiration and its help.”

An Evening with Garry Kasparov | Zentrum Liberale Moderne | January 27, 2023

Eins, zwei, drei!https://t.co/MzSle0Hkr9

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) January 27, 2023

An evening with Garry Kasparov and guests.
Three Essentials for the West:
– Complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine.
– Those responsible for war crimes must be held accountable
– Use of frozen Russian assets for reconstruction in Ukraine@fuecks https://t.co/EtO9hgjYqz

— LibMod – Zentrum Liberale Moderne (@LiberaleModerne) January 27, 2023

Politik Ausland | Die Welt | January 27, 2023

Deutschland ist doch längst schon Kriegspartei – sagt Garry @Kasparov63 im WELT-TV-Interview mit @francalehfeldt und Alexander Siemon.https://t.co/uIf6XDyQpJ via @welt

— Olaf Gersemann (@OlafGersemann) January 26, 2023

This article is a reprint. You can read the original at Die Welt.

“Wenn die Bevölkerung sieht, dass der Krieg verloren wird, ist es aus mit Putin“

Deutschland und die USA wollen die Ukraine mit Kampfpanzern westlicher Bauart im Krieg unterstützen. Die russische Führung wertet die USA und die Nato nun als Kriegsparteien. Der ehemalige Schachweltmeister und Dissident Garri Kasparow spricht exklusiv bei WELT über die angespannte geopolitische”