Interview: Big Finance, Big Tech AI Titans Ride Next Wave of Colonization at COP16
Excerpts from an interview with Lynn Fries of GPE NewsDocs
Hi friends, I’m posting here excerpts (and a video) from a long interview I recently gave to Lynn Fries of GPE NewsDocs in the aftermath of the recent Cali CBD Cop16.
Lynn is a former financial professional and an experienced journalist and producer whose online channel, GPE NewsDocs, is a great place to find reflective, thoughtful long-form exploration of Global Political Economy news and analysis. She interviews various folks there who are tracking the financialization of the natural world, the power of corporations, the abuses of agribusiness and more.
Lynn had already shared on her channel a webinar on ‘Black Box Biotech’ (generative biology) hosted by the African Center for Biodiversity (see here and here). I’m very appreciative to Lynn for this chance to dig deeper into the implications of the discussions and outcome from the biodiversity convention’s negotiations. In this interview we explore the links between financialization of nature and new genetic technologies, artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, generative biology, biosafety and biopiracy.
The full interview is just over an hour long and is available online (with a full transcript) here: https://gpenewsdocs.com/big-finance-big-tech-ai-titans-ride-next-wave-of-colonization-at-cop16/
But for those who don’t want to watch or listen to an entire hour of conversation I’ve made some excerpts below to browse through and give you some sense of the discussion.
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How Financialisation of Nature is being tied to risky new technologies
“We’re seeing a sort of a new agenda at the COP at the CBD which has really come across from the climate COP. But is also where tech companies, finance companies are seeing a new opportunity here.
They want to turn biodiversity into new financial markets. They’re thinking that they can set up biodiversity markets and biodiversity credits. Just like we have carbon markets and carbon credits.
In order to achieve that, they’re bringing in new technologies, new monitoring technologies, new genetic engineering technologies. And so in some ways the CBD is now becoming a marketplace for quite cutting edge digital and genetic engineering technologies as a way to manage the problems of the environment and biodiversity collapse.”
On creating a new bioeconomy:
“One of the things that’s very clearly on display in Cali at the COP was this hope by governments, including big South governments such as Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, that they would be able to create a new bio-economy. That by using genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, they would create a new high tech economy that would let them sort of leapfrog ahead.
And the promise is there as well from financiers, from big philanthropists like the Bezos Earth Fund, that the way to get beyond the current carbon economy, the fossil fuel economy, is to create a high tech economy based on new technologies, genetic engineering, and artificial intelligence.
And so this was on view. This attempt to create a sort of high tech, financialized version of nature and the economy around nature was part of what’s going on”
On how and why big tech is driving generative biology:
“It is large tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, NVIDIA, Alibaba, and Salesforce. They’re the ones who are now setting up these platforms which will design proteins, which will design viruses that will design RNA, which will design organisms.
And then partnering with chemical companies, with pharmaceutical companies, with food companies. And they certainly don’t have any history on carefully managing bio safety risks.
What they do have a history of is very successfully creating monopolies, very successfully moving ahead of government regulation and and getting their their technologies out there into commercial use before any kind of controls can be put in place.
So, that’s worrying to see literally the world’s most powerful, well capitalized companies jumping on this bandwagon.
In part, I think they’re doing it because their AI platforms, whether that’s ChatGPT or Gemini and so forth, aren’t delivering much. They’ve spent billions of dollars, in fact almost trillions of dollars, building out AI platforms that have really just created a few chatbots.
And the financiers are saying what are we getting for our money? So they need to be able to show that ultimately they’re going to get drugs. They’re going to get foods. They’re going to get new materials. They’re going to be able to create energy solutions.
So that’s why they’re moving into this. But they’re doing so at a pace and with a lack of accountability, that’s really quite scary.”
On how AI/synthetic biology convergence may overwhelm regulatory capacity:
“One of the brakes on new genetic engineering organisms impacting biodiversity has been that it’s slow at the moment. It’s been slow to create a new genetically engineered organism to get it out into the environment.
And that’s what’s changed with synthetic biology and now with artificial intelligence. It’s now increasingly quick and easy to generate new genetic codes that somewhat seem to work. To transfer them into living organisms, whether that’s bacteria or into viruses or into other organisms such as plants and animals.
And increasingly, there’s a focus on putting them into organisms that are going to be in nature, whether that’s insects or bacteria and so forth.
So the danger is that with the use of artificial intelligence to design increasingly novel organisms, you’re going to see many more synthetic organisms being released. Certainly more than biosafety regulators are able to easily regulate.
And also, we’re seeing a big focus on creating new proteins that you can genetically engineer. Novel proteins, whether for food or for materials or for drugs that never previously were possible. Those too, there’s a concern coming that those could over overwhelm regulators or just be produced without regulation.
So we’re sort of at a tipping point if not already soon, where we’re going to see a volume of new entities whether that’s proteins, whether that’s organisms or viruses being produced – for the marketplace, for environmental release and honestly also for other uses – that the biosafety regulations aren’t really capable or have the capacity to deal with.”
On how synthetic biology and AI enable the wrong type of food system transformation:
“ I suppose in the face of all of the many threats to biodiversity, the climate and so forth, there are different routes you could go for food and agriculture and sustainable development. One is to really support systems such as agroecology where you’re supporting communities on the land to use their own knowledge and their own techniques appropriate to their own place.
Where synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, and new technologies fit is a very different route. It’s a sort of high tech control vision. That in face of all the threats to the biosphere and to biodiversity, states and companies will create a sort of high tech control and command of food production, of biodiversity, of carbon capture and so forth.
And pushes the power and agency of communitiesout of the way. Their land becomes a resource for genetic information that feeds the AI systems. It also becomes necessary to control their lands and territories in order to grow enough food in an industrial food chain.
And their knowledge so far as it’s relevant has been hoovered up by artificial intelligence and used to generate commercial products that will be sold back to them.
So I honestly think where this heads is that the knowledge of communities of indigenous people, of farmers, of fisher folk gets more and more marginalized if you build your food systems, your health systems, your environmental systems around these high tech fixes”.
On the Cali Fund on digital sequence information (DSI):
“This fund is around what was called digital sequence information - that is the digital version of the genetic sequences. The DNA sequences fund is now going to be called the Cali Fund.
There were continual day and night negotiations for two weeks to try and get this Cali Fund established. And it was established. And industry not only has to pay into this, but thinks they’re going to get money out of this.
They hope to set it up so that they can use that money to grab more DNA, for example. or to train people in using genetic engineering. So it’s a two edged sword.”
On the fundamental “deal” behind Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS):
“It’s true that the kind of the fundamental bargain that was agreed at the beginning of the Convention, the U. S. and other industrial countries, were saying: Well, we hope we can make a market in this stuff. That by agreeing a benefit sharing arrangement for genetic resources, DNA, and so forth will become part of a market.
And that is now what’s on full display. This idea that the South should hoover up as much of its genetic resources as possible. And in Cali we had a number of companies there who were offering to do what’s called eDNA scans. They were offering communities that they would just be basically sampling again and again environmental DNA.
And that in turn will be going to a fund where you’ll get a little bit of money off the back. And all of that will run these artificial intelligence platforms that will create new drugs, new plastics, new materials, new foods. Which will benefit, frankly, largely the North.
That’s now the full game. It’s how can nature become a source of commercial opportunity for banks, for tech companies, for Northern investors. And the South will provide the underlying resources, will provide the genes, the DNA and the biodiversity, and get a smallbit of money in a fund, such as the Cali Fund, off the back of that.
So, that’s sort of the restatement of what was originally struck as a deal 25 years ago, 25 to 30 years ago. Now it’s quite naked that this is about trying to create a different economy. Potentially a post fossil fuel economy is how it’s presented, an economy that’s supposedly about nature based solutions. It’s a green economy.
All of these things were being said very loudly by, for example, the Bezos Earth Fund, which is, of course, the largesse of Jeff Bezos who’s one of the major investors in this.
And some of the large South governments – Brazil, Argentina, and others – are happy to go along with this vision in the hope that they might build high tech sectors along the way.”
On AI and generative biology as a new form of colonialism:
“Many of the groups who are at the convention meeting in Cali, indigenous groups, civil society groups, women’s groups, were saying quite loudly that what’s going on is a new wave of colonialism.
That through things like biodiversity markets and new technologies, the same power players, whether that’s financial players or tech players or large Northern industrial countries are trying to grab power over territories, over life and even over people’s culture.
Colonialism always comes (whether it’s with gunboats or with debt) with a narrative that what’s on the territory is worthless. Whether that’s human lives or foods or now genes and biomass. That all of this stuff isn’t really worth anything. And it should be handed over in exchange for trinkets. In this case, new technologies, little bits of money in a fund.
That in exchange for those trinkets the South should now hand over its biodiversity. Or should put large areas of its biodiversity in sort of fenced off spaces that will be controlled by Northern Conservation NGOs, which is the other thing that’s going on.
I think now that the technology is there to sequence, to take codes, from every living organism and put it into artificial intelligence models and generate new products in the North, they’re sort of offering little bits of money (trinkets of money if you like into this fund, the Cali Fund) and promises that the South might get some of this technology through technology transfer in order to grab as much as possible of this genetic resources, of this biodiversity.
And that that becomes the underlying resource for Artificial Intelligence companies like Google or Microsoft or Nvidia or large pharmaceutical companies, whether that’s Pfizer or Johnson and Johnson or agribusiness companies like Corteva and Bayer.
The North wants to make sure that they have unfettered access to as much genetic resources and biological diversity as possible to build out this different economy.
So it is, the same story that we see again and again. You come for territory, you come for human bodies, you come for food and commodities, and now you come for genetic commodities, the next phase of colonial exploitation.”
On whether the Cali Fund and AI breaks the link with Access and Benefit Sharing?
“LF: You said the Cali Fund breaks the connection between those who looked after genetic resources and those who are exploiting those resources. Talk about the role played by what you call black box biotech in undermining the previous CBD agenda to avoid biopiracy, so the appropriation of biological resources or traditional knowledge without proper compensation or consent.
JT: Yeah. So, originally, the way in which the Convention on Biological Diversity set up the question of what they call access and benefit sharing over genetic resources was they asked for a Memorandum of Understanding.
That if you take a seed or a sample from one place, from one community and you’re going to carry it across the world and give a biotech company, then you have to have a sort of paper trail. And a Memorandum of Understanding of where that specific DNA sequencing came from and went to such that benefits could go back. It was creating a paper trail.
This has become harder and harder to track as you have large databases where you’re not moving digital material. It’s all being uploaded digitally into very large databases that are held by the U. S. government or the Japanese government.
And then other companies will come in and scrape off of that. But you still could, absolutely could, track where the data they’re taking comes from and where it ends up. This is all possible.
Where it becomes even more complicated, however, is when you start to introduce artificial intelligence platforms. So the artificial intelligence platforms that are now coming out for designing genetic material, so called generative biology, what they do is they scrape all the DNA data from all the databases.
They use it to train an artificial intelligence model. That model has millions, sometimes billions of different variables. And then you ask a question of it and it generates a brand new novel, supposedly, piece of DNA or a brand new novel piece of protein, a sequence for protein.
And what the companies will often say is because this artificial intelligence process is so tremendously complex – the many variables and the weights within the model – it effectively becomes a black box.
You can’t just track a line between the data that comes in and the new novel data that comes out, the so-called synthetic data.
And therefore, the idea that you’re going to be able to say that this invented piece of DNA comes from these other pieces of DNA that were taken from, you know, the South Pacific or from North Africa, it begins to break down within that model.
Now, that then becomes an argument for this sort of general fund. Which then says: okay, if we can’t trace it within the model, then we’ll have a general fund. Anyone who uses this will pay into that fund. And that fund will pay to indigenous people and to farmers and so forth.
So that’s the way in which this black box nature of artificial intelligence accelerates what’s happening here.
Interestingly enough, in Cali I met with some of the artificial intelligence companies who were there and were lobbying. And they said that they think they can trace. They believe that they actually do trace. And so it may be that the black box can be circumvented.
It may be that you could request that an artificial intelligence company building one of these models has to be able to trace. And that’s more work for them, but that would somewhat enforce justice.
It would somewhat ensure that if you’re designing a new genetic sequence, you have to prove where it comes from. This is what’s known as explainable AI.
So, it may not be entirely impossible, but this is exactly the sort of thing that needs to be looked into.
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if a company shows that they made an agreement and that they promised that they were going to give some kind of benefit back to a community, that’s legal biopiracy. And peasant communities, indigenous communities have said this is an unfair system to begin with.
You know, that if somebody breaks into your house steals your television set and on the way out says: It’s alright. I’ll give you a benefit. That’s not necessarily something you’ve agreed to. It’s something that you kind of have to deal with.
And that’s how many communities feel. Often, DNA was taken from them. Samples were taken from them. Often it was taken decades or even centuries ago. Collecting for botanical gardens, for example, without them understanding or agreeing to have the many ways in which it could be used.
And now they’re being told: It’s alright; we’ll give you some benefit. You’ll make some money out of it. But they have lost sort of sovereign rights and control over the use of the resources that they’ve looked after. That they’ve developed.
So this is why it’s such a contentious and highly emotional topic especially for indigenous and peasant communities. This is about the very resources that their lives and cultures depend upon.”
On axing precaution – how countries choose to cover their eyes to impacts:
“The same countries who really want to financialize biodiversity; who really want to take advantage of this new Cali fund; who want to have these new technologies transferred to them were blocking the opportunity to assess or do horizon scanning or monitor these technologies.
Effectively asking that the Convention stops; sort of covers its eyes with the impacts and just takes the money to develop the technology. And that’s what the industry wants.
The industry wants this Convention not to be a critical reflective space to properly oversee and regulate biotechnology but to be a promotional space where monies can be gathered together to build the biotechnology industry and the promise of techno fixes.
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It’s a sort of very basic common sense request that if you’re going to put lots of money and energy and political time into promoting new technologies, you also need to understand how they’re going to impact people; how they’re going to impact nature; how they’re going to impact economies. And industry doesn’t want to have those discussions.”
On when technology transfer becomes technology dumping:
“Technology transfer has become an increasing demand in the Convention on Biodiversity. And it’s supported very much by African and Latin American and Asian countries who hope that if new emerging technologies such as synthetic biology, artificial intelligence are transferred to their economy, then these will help boost their economy.
The problem in technology transfer is which technologies get transferred and how do we make sure they’re not technology dumping? That very often when a technology is failing in the North, such as for example, incineration, then it gets transferred to the South. And the South has to deal with its impacts.
Sometimes the transfer of technology is a way of opening up new markets that are then tied to having to use the expertise and technologies of Northern companies. And that would just drive countries deeper into debt.
Or create agricultural systems or other systems that aren’t appropriate to their own culture.
That’s why technology transfer has to be tied with technology assessment. You have to see whether the technologies are appropriate to the cultures and the environments and economies into which they’re being transferred.
And that they don’t come with strings. That they don’t come with dependencies. That’s a very real risk.
Unfortunately, at the Convention on Biodiversity, as elsewhere, Southern countries are dealing with cripplingly high loads of debt. And they’re being promised easy ways out.
That if you just jump onto the biotech bandwagon, if you just jump onto the bandwagon of digitalization and artificial intelligence, this will get you out of the economic straits that the countries are in.
Of course, it doesn’t. It’s potentially a trick. It gets them deeper into those economic straits.
The underlying problem here are the historical debts that they’ve been forced into and structurally adjusted into. And that’s actually the thing that needs to be dealt with.
Not giving them new techno fixes that may not work and may tie them more to all sorts of obligations.”
On why technology assessment is essential:
“Every society, every culture uses technologies and develops technologies that are appropriate to their needs. And so long as that community is able to exercise control over those technologies and develop them to fit their culture, then those those technologies are helpful and useful.
The danger I think we have now is that we have technologies that are being determined and driven and imposed not at the level of communities, not at the level of specific cultures but by corporate strategies that fit the bottom line.
We need to therefore have processes to determine which are the appropriate technologies. That’swhy technology assessment has become such a major rallying call for movements and civil society.
Unless we can begin to exercise discrimination over which technologies move forward, which technologies are appropriate to communities and the rights of communities and ensure that there’s a choice made on the right technologies to move forward through assessment you’re going to have the technologies of the elites of those who can push their technologies onto society then reshape society.
So the bigger call here is about agency and democratic accountability in development of new technologies and assessment is one of the first steps towards that.”