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OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company that developed the popular ChatGPT chatbot and the text-to-art program Dall-E, is at a crossroads. On Oct. 2, 2024, it announced that it had obtained US$6.6 billion in new funding from investors and that the business was worth an estimated $157 billion – making it only the second startup ever to be valued at over $100 billion.

Unlike other big tech companies, OpenAI is a nonprofit with a for-profit subsidiary that is overseen by a nonprofit board of directors. Since its founding in 2015, OpenAI’s official mission has been “to build artificial general intelligence (AGI) that is safe and benefits all of humanity.”

By late September 2024, The Associated Press, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and many other media outlets were reporting that OpenAI plans to discard its nonprofit status and become a for-profit tech company managed by investors. These stories have all cited anonymous sources. The New York Times, referencing documents from the recent funding round, reported that unless this change happens within two years, the $6.6 billion in equity would become debt owed to the investors who provided that funding.

The Conversation U.S. asked Alnoor Ebrahim, a Tufts University management scholar, to explain why OpenAI’s leaders’ reported plans to change its structure would be significant and potentially problematic.

How have its top executives and board members responded?

There has been a lot of leadership turmoil at OpenAI. The disagreements boiled over in November 2023, when its board briefly ousted Sam Altman, its CEO. He got his job back in less than a week, and then three board members resigned. The departing directors were advocates for building stronger guardrails and encouraging regulation to protect humanity from potential harms posed by AI.

Over a dozen senior staff members have quit since then, including several other co-founders and executives responsible for overseeing OpenAI’s safety policies and practices. At least two of them have joined Anthropic, a rival founded by a former OpenAI executive responsible for AI safety. Some of the departing executives say that Altman has pushed the company to launch products prematurely.

Safety “has taken a backseat to shiny products,” said OpenAI’s former safety team leader Jan Leike, who quit in May 2024.

Open AI CEO Sam Altman, center, speaks at an event in September 2024.
Bryan R. Smith/Pool Photo via AP

Why would OpenAI’s structure change?

OpenAI’s deep-pocketed investors cannot own shares in the organization under its existing nonprofit governance structure, nor can they get a seat on its board of directors. That’s because OpenAI is incorporated as a nonprofit whose purpose is to benefit society rather than private interests. Until now, all rounds of investments, including a reported total of $13 billion from Microsoft, have been channeled through a for-profit subsidiary that belongs to the nonprofit.

The current structure allows OpenAI to accept money from private investors in exchange for a future portion of its profits. But those investors do not get a voting seat on the board, and their profits are “capped.” According to information previously made public, OpenAI’s original investors can’t earn more than 100 times the money they provided. The goal of this hybrid governance model is to balance profits with OpenAI’s safety-focused mission.

Becoming a for-profit enterprise would make it possible for its investors to acquire ownership stakes in OpenAI and no longer have to face a cap on their potential profits. Down the road, OpenAI could also go public and raise capital on the stock market.

Altman reportedly seeks to personally acquire a 7% equity stake in OpenAI, according to a Bloomberg article that cited unnamed sources.

That arrangement is not allowed for nonprofit executives, according to BoardSource, an association of nonprofit board members and executives. Instead, the association explains, nonprofits “must reinvest surpluses back into the organization and its tax-exempt purpose.”

What kind of company might OpenAI become?

The Washington Post and other media outlets have reported, also citing unnamed sources, that OpenAI might become a “public benefit corporation” – a business that aims to benefit society and earn profits.

Examples of businesses with this status, known as B Corps., include outdoor clothing and gear company Patagonia and eyewear maker Warby Parker.

It’s more typical that a for-profit business – not a nonprofit – becomes a benefit corporation, according to the B Lab, a network that sets standards and offers certification for B Corps. It is unusual for a nonprofit to do this because nonprofit governance already requires those groups to benefit society.

Boards of companies with this legal status are free to consider the interests of society, the environment and people who aren’t its shareholders, but that is not required. The board may still choose to make profits a top priority and can drop its benefit status to satisfy its investors. That is what online craft marketplace Etsy did in 2017, two years after becoming a publicly traded company.

In my view, any attempt to convert a nonprofit into a public benefit corporation is a clear move away from focusing on the nonprofit’s mission. And there will be a risk that becoming a benefit corporation would just be a ploy to mask a shift toward focusing on revenue growth and investors’ profits.

Many legal scholars and other experts are predicting that OpenAI will not do away with its hybrid ownership model entirely because of legal restrictions on the placement of nonprofit assets in private hands.

But I think OpenAI has a possible workaround: It could try to dilute the nonprofit’s control by making it a minority shareholder in a new for-profit structure. This would effectively eliminate the nonprofit board’s power to hold the company accountable. Such a move could lead to an investigation by the office of the relevant state attorney general and potentially by the Internal Revenue Service.

What could happen if OpenAI turns into a for-profit company?

The stakes for society are high.

AI’s potential harms are wide-ranging, and some are already apparent, such as deceptive political campaigns and bias in health care.

If OpenAI, an industry leader, begins to focus more on earning profits than ensuring AI’s safety, I believe that these dangers could get worse. Geoffrey Hinton, who won the 2024 Nobel Prize in physics for his artificial intelligence research, has cautioned that AI may exacerbate inequality by replacing “lots of mundane jobs.” He believes that there’s a 50% probability “that we’ll have to confront the problem of AI trying to take over” from humanity.

And even if OpenAI did retain board members for whom safety is a top concern, the only common denominator for the members of its new corporate board would be their obligation to protect the interests of the company’s shareholders, who would expect to earn a profit. While such expectations are common on a for-profit board, they constitute a conflict of interest on a nonprofit board where mission must come first and board members cannot benefit financially from the organization’s work.

The arrangement would, no doubt, please OpenAI’s investors. But would it be good for society? The purpose of nonprofit control over a for-profit subsidiary is to ensure that profit does not interfere with the nonprofit’s mission. Without guardrails to ensure that the board seeks to limit harm to humanity from AI, there would be little reason for it to prevent the company from maximizing profit, even if its chatbots and other AI products endanger society.

Regardless of what OpenAI does, most artificial intelligence companies are already for-profit businesses. So, in my view, the only way to manage the potential harms is through better industry standards and regulations that are starting to take shape.

California’s governor vetoed such a bill in September 2024 on the grounds it would slow innovation – but I believe slowing it down is exactly what is needed, given the dangers AI already poses to society. Läs mer…

I came of age in the 1990s and lived through the heavily gendered pop culture of Spice Girls and All Saints, Oasis and Blur, of lads and ladettes outdoing each other in heavy drinking and sexual exploits.

Now in my 40s, I thought this brash and overtly sexist culture had faded out. It appeared to have been replaced by a socially progressive and inclusive generation focused on body and sex positivity, gender and sexual fluidity. And so I was surprised to see my generation Z research participants romanticise the 1990s as a belle epoque.

First it was Sex and the City, then lad’s mag Loaded and now Oasis. Popular culture from the 1990s is having a moment in the mid-2020s. The 90s have been a stylistic and cultural influence on youth culture for the best part of a decade, with large amounts of money invested in big-name reboots and reunions.

I began researching young adults’ sexual politics and their relationship to popular culture back in 2016. It was clear from my observations of the clothing, social media and references back then that the 90s were a major cultural influence. I remember being surprised by the popularity of the TV shows like Friends and musicians including Shaggy, Oasis and Suede from my own youth.

Every generation has a romanticised nostalgia for the fashion, music and attitudes of the previous. When I was a teenager, my friends and I held a romanticised nostalgia for the music, fashion and sense of freedom we believed characterised the 60s and 70s. This view, however, did not align with my parents’ and their peers’ recollections of that time.

Read more:
Sick of reboots? How ’nostalgia bait’ profits off Millennial and Gen Z’s childhood memories

What is most interesting here is the apparent contradiction in values. The objectification of women at the heart of 90s pop culture does not gel with what we think of as the sexually open, progressive politics of generation Z. But having studied the intersection of pop culture and gender, I see this current resurgence as part of a misogynistic backlash to feminist progress – something that feminist scholars have highlighted as a typical pattern for years.

Much of 90s popular culture is inherently misogynistic. Loaded and other now-defunct lads’ mags were infamous for their brutal objectification of women, including advice on how to get women into bed by almost any means. The celebrated lad culture epitomised by the likes of Oasis encouraged “men to be men”, with all the macho aggression and limited emotional range that implied.

A damning 2012 National Union of Students report on sexual harassment and assault on university campuses made explicit links to the prevalence of lad culture in UK higher education. It argued lad culture at best objectifies and is dismissive of women, and at worst glamorises sexual assault.

Read more:
Sexual strangulation has become popular – but that doesn’t mean it’s wanted

Gen Z is widely considered a generation of social activists, having grown up in the shadow of movements like #MeToo and the Women’s March that emerged in protest of the election of Donald Trump as US president. These cultural touchpoints in this generation’s upbringing highlight intersections of sex and power.

Some young consumers have acknowledged this mismatch, describing Sex and the City as “outdated” and “cringey”. And incoming Loaded editor Danni Levy seems aware of it too, saying the relaunch is necessary because of the “world gone PC mad”.

Why is 90s culture popular now?

I argue the resurgence of 90s popular culture is actually part of a backlash against the progressive understandings of gender and sexuality associated with generation Z.

Research indicates that gen Z men are less likely to support feminism than baby boomers. Young men and boys are increasingly being influenced by figures like self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate, who faces charges of rape and human trafficking among other offences.

While enjoying 90s television of course doesn’t mean you hold the same misogynistic views as Tate, I believe some popular culture is central to a continuum of backlash against feminist progress.

To explain this, I suggest turning to feminist scholars – including one of my own 90s favourites, Susan Faludi’s excellent 1992 book Backlash: The undeclared war against women. In this work, Faludi details multiple periods of backlash against women’s liberation dating from 195BC. Each of these is linked to repeated “crises of masculinity”.

Some young viewers of today have declared Sex and the City ‘outdated’ and ‘cringey’.
©Home Box Office

Much feminist writing details how the very notion of masculinity depends on a subordinate femininity. And so, Faludi argues, advances in feminism equal a crisis of masculinity. Progress begets backlash, and popular culture is a key site where this takes place.

Through my research I work to detail the subtle and nuanced ways this happens. I am currently researching how popular culture interprets and remixes progressive ideas like sex and gender positivity.

At first glance, songs, films and shows may seem to be supportive of women’s sexual liberation, but on closer inspection they can reinforce traditional ideas of what it is to be a woman, or what it is to be attractive. Katy Perry’s recent music video Woman’s World is a classic example of this. Its lyrical appropriation of feminist messages of empowerment is delivered in an outdated visual style that adheres to the male gaze.

Perry and her dancers strut around in swimwear costumes adapted to mimic various “masculine” professions. Critiqued for its lack of authenticity, Perry’s video represents a male sexual dreamworld that is inconsistent with the feminist politics it links itself to.

There is often, in examples like this, a blurring of feminist and anti-feminist ideas – where it seems as though feminism is so commonsense it is no longer necessary, and is therefore neutralised.

A multitude of literature on female sexual desire has emerged in the last few years. It is wide-ranging and imaginative. And yet, much of 90s popular culture flattens this complexity, painting female desire as only a desire to be desired by men.

It prioritises male pleasure and advocates for their sexual dominance over women, reverting to understandings of “acceptable” sex as heterosexual, monogamous and male-led. Despite years of feminist progress, popular culture continues to teach us that women are objects of male sexual fantasy. Läs mer…

Sally Rooney’s new novel, Intermezzo, is finally here – and nearly everyone I know seems to be reading it. It’s almost like the pre-streaming days, when everyone would settle on the sofa at the same time to watch the new hit TV series. The sense that we were all part of the same unfolding experience of a story was part of the joy.

Not many authors can achieve that in this era of the digital kaleidoscope, when myriad creative experiences can be accessed at the touch of a button. Rooney’s cult status has led to her being described as the “voice of a generation”. The label generally refers to an author whose work particularly resonates with people in their 20s and 30s. But why have Rooney’s books had this effect? And who were the literary voices of previous generations?

Logically, of course, the phrase is inaccurate when applied to any single writer. Generations include vastly different cohorts and people from diverse backgrounds, and no authorial voice can actually represent them all. Rooney couldn’t, even if everyone on the planet were reading Intermezzo right now – which they’re not. At least, not quite. And yet, as a phrase used to describe a writer whose work has had a notably greater impact than most others, it is worth interrogating.

No one’s 20s and 30s look the same. You might be saving for a mortgage or just struggling to pay rent. You could be swiping dating apps, or trying to understand childcare. No matter your current challenges, our Quarter Life series has articles to share in the group chat, or just to remind you that you’re not alone.

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To be the person crowned with this label – to have to embody “the voice of a generation” – must feel simultaneously like an honour and a burden. Rooney herself has outwardly rejected it. In 2018 she told the Guardian: “I certainly never intended to speak for anyone other than myself. Even myself I find it difficult to speak for.”

And yet she invariably speaks persuasively and cogently in public events about her books: an ability which no doubt stems from her background as a champion debater.

Rooney speaks about Palestine during the launch of her new novel, Intermezzo.

This ability also brings a rare clarity to her writing. Rooney has a knack for describing with precision, and also with lyricism, the textural experience of being a young person in the world, particularly an intelligent yet lonely young person. Her characters feel almost as strongly about big ideas as they do about their animal desires.

Read more:
How does someone become the ’voice of a generation’? A brief history of the concept

It’s a hard time to be young. Rooney understands and engages with the high cost of living, precarious jobs, stark social inequality and the climate crisis in her novels. Yet these ideas and political concerns never subsume the specific human characters, in specific Irish settings, that lie at the heart of each story. These are surely some of the intersecting reasons why her fiction has resonated so widely with the under 30s.

Intermezzo can be distinguished from Rooney’s previous two novels in its interrogation of intimate relationships that are perceived to be highly unconventional, and exploring how the characters negotiate that social tension. I like to think that’s why it has sparked so much interest – but I may well be biased, since my forthcoming novel, The Unexpected, does the same thing, albeit with a co-parenting angle.

Voices of generations past

Looking back a generation, Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth, published in 2000 when she was in her early 20s, sparked a comparable reading fever, and prompted the same “voice of a generation” label.

Smith broke new ground back then with the fresh, funny and profound quality of her writing about the multicultural community of north-west London, particularly through her sparkling dialogue. Like Rooney’s fiction, Smith’s addresses pressing political issues, notably relating to race, class and migration, and yet those concerns never overpower the vivid individuality of her characters.

Author Zadie Smith was also called the voice of her generation.
Alex MacNaughton/Alamy Stock Photo

Like Rooney, Smith is a compelling public speaker, articulating her ideas with directness and wit. Her clear public “voice” surely helped the “voice of a generation” label to adhere. Yet Smith similarly rejected the idea that she had ever sought to represent any generation or group through her fiction. Conversely, she has denied even having a singular “voice” that might be linked to arbitrary aspects of her autobiography. Instead, she describes always having had multiple voices in her head, arguing that good fiction actually stems from a productive self-doubt, combined with a sense of compassion and curiosity about other people and the world.

Turning the dial back further, into the 20th century, the so-called “voices of a generation” that come to mind are mostly white men. Brett Easton Ellis and J.D. Salinger, for instance, in the US; and Martin Amis and Ian McEwan in the UK.

It is heartening that fiction is no longer so dominated by male writers, especially when fiction readers remain predominantly female. And over the last two decades, it has been great to witness the championing of more diverse authors in the publishing industry: a shift which has been long overdue.

Still, as the real world appears to become increasingly divided through social media bubbles and extremist politics, it seems more important than ever to hold onto the vital role of fiction. Not as a loudspeaker for authorial “voices” that are assumed to represent neatly defined groups of people, but as a portal to imagined voices that reveal how unique yet interconnected we all are. Fiction is a force that can draw us together, regardless of our backgrounds, and increase our empathy for one another.

If a single writer can spark as many people as Rooney has to engage collectively in deep appreciation for their works of fiction, then it seems important to find a shorthand to capture that. If “the voice of a generation” is too exclusive, perhaps “a voice for a generation” is a more nuanced alternative.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here. Läs mer…

According to some conspiracy theorists posting on alternative, uncensored social media networks, Mpox is another “scamdemic”, created by a powerful elite to cull populations and generate profit for “big pharma”. According to these social media users, anyone who takes the Mpox vaccine inevitably faces heart attack and death.

Other Mpox conspiracies target hate at LGBTQ+ people.

Through my PhD research into anti-vaccination misinformation, I’ve collected thousands of social media posts, videos, images and links from anti-vaccination Telegram channels, Substack newsletters and Gab groups. Gab Social is a social networking site known for hosting right-wing political content. These platforms are unique in their permissive approach to moderation. Users can post virtually anything they want without restraint.

According to 2023 research, platforms like Gab have become the home of many “alt-right” content creators who have been de-platformed from mainstream social media channels like Facebook and Instagram. Mpox misinformation is thriving in these online locations.

Sexuality and stigma

In the early days of the COVID pandemic, a study identified that misinformation on social media platforms like Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter) and YouTube frequently blamed specific social groups for infection surges. Now, it’s MPox’s turn.

One Substack creator, for example, considers gay and bisexual men engaging in “high-risk sexual behaviour” a threat to the heterosexual population. He argues abstinence is the only solution – but only for men who have sex with men.

As well as accusing gay and bisexual men of having a “perverted lifestyle that goes against nature and God’s laws”, some anti-vaxx content creators stigmatise people with Mpox as a hidden enemy, who could be “teaching in schools and indoctrinating children”.

One common anti-vaxx conspiracy theory is “vaccine shedding”. This is the idea that vaccinated people can harm the unvaccinated through any kind of contact. One online conspiracy states the Mpox vaccine is particularly prone to shedding. Gay and bisexual men, then, are portrayed as dangerous whether they’re vaccinated or not.

Mpox is routinely characterised by conspiracy theorists as a virus for immoral people. As a result, some anti-vaxx perspectives are shockingly callous – one commenter claims they wouldn’t care at all if “the gays and communists” died from the Mpox vaccine.

Misinformation surrounding Mpox and the vaccine is peppered with such homophobic narratives of infection and contamination – and it’s familiar territory. People suffering from HIV and Aids in the 1980s and 1990s were relentlessly stigmatised as a dangerous other.

While online conspiracy theories present those with Mpox as a menace, in reality, there have only been a small number of mild Mpox cases identified in the UK since 2022. Though the majority of confirmed cases of Mpox in the UK have been in gay and bisexual men – and Mpox can be transmitted through close sexual contact – people can also become infected if they’re exposed to coughing and sneezing, or share clothing, bedding and towels with an infected person.

Moderation and misinformation

In August 2024, a new strain of Mpox was identified in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and some neighbouring countries. An estimated 10 million vaccines are needed to meet demand in affected African nations. In September 2024, the UK government ordered 150,000 doses of an Mpox vaccine to be distributed among gay and bisexual men and healthcare and humanitarian workers who may be exposed.

Just as many of us might check a reliable, verified medical source to find out more about Mpox, so alternative social media users look to the sources they trust. This commonly includes doctors blowing the whistle on alleged vaccine injury, conspiracy theory “news” sites and prominent right wing figures like Tucker Carlson. People selling alternative remedies and products promising miraculous detox are never far away to profit from vaccine misinformation.

Users share these sources across Gab groups, comment threads and Telegram channels, layering their own beliefs on top. This generates even more views and shares, which is one of the reasons why social media is such a good incubator for conspiracy theories and misinformation.

Another reason is the lack of content moderation on alternative social media sites. Substack describes itself as “a place for independent writing”. Users are not supposed to share any content which incites violence, contains sex or nudity, or illegal activity. Telegram takes a similar approach. Gab also draws the line at illegal content, but mainly encourages users to hide content they don’t want to see or ignore it.

The arguments for or against unrestrained free speech on the internet are complex. But sites like Gab reveal what an unmoderated internet can look like – hate of every variety can find a home here if that’s what the users choose to post. Mpox is just another topic to generate even more shareable content. Läs mer…

Sally Rooney, author of Normal People and now Intermezzo, keeps being called “the voice of a generation”. And she’s just the latest in a sequence of authors to get this accolade.

In 1991, Douglas Coupland’s novel Generation X supposedly made him the “voice of” that generation. Looking further back, J.D. Salinger’s first and only novel, Catcher in the Rye (1951), seemed to capture the voice of a generation at the time, and has resonated with successive generations of awkward and disaffected teenagers ever since.

What’s behind this phenomenon is generational thinking. It seems to be everywhere at the moment, providing the media with easy taglines, spreading cliches and unnecessarily sowing division. But its history goes back far beyond even the baby-boomers.

In the 19th century, after the radical upheavals of the Enlightenment , the “age of revolutions” and the Industrial Revolution, some people wondered if perhaps they could reject tradition completely. Groups of young artists began to rebel against a model of discipleship that required them to learn from their elders.

Instead of following the art world’s top-down, paternalistic apprenticeship model, these fraternities and brotherhoods (yes, they were mainly men) declared that were innovating a new dawn in art.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, for example, now viewed as quaint, were definitely Victorian radicals, as were the impressionists 25 years later. These tight-knit groups of artists had a strong sense of generational identity, rebelling against their predecessors.

In one important way, however, they were different from the modern “voice of a generation” figures because these groups also saw themselves as rebelling against their own peers. We now might see them as iconic of their generation, but at the time, they were rejects, though elite ones – bohemian in the original sense. Crucially, they were honest about their oddity. They knew they were unusual, so they didn’t claim to be speaking for everyone.

This paradox highlights one of the challenges of history: that we’re understandably most captivated by people who were “ahead of their time”, but these people are therefore probably not representative of their time.

Read more:
How Sally Rooney came to be dubbed the ’voice of a generation’

The origins of generational thinking

The idea of generations as self-conscious group identities came into being with the trauma and upheaval of the first world war. Over the next couple of decades, writers who had come of age during the war narrated how it had decimated and traumatised their generation.

Examples include Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front (1928), R.C. Sherriff’s play Journey’s End (1928) and Vera Brittain’s autobiography, Testament of Youth (1933).

These stories all express an angry sense of having been “lions led by donkeys”. They envisage an unbridgeable divide between their own front-line generation, sacrificing its youth, and an older generation of complacent army commanders.

They also trace a second divide between themselves and the slighter younger generation who came of age after the war’s end and didn’t want to think about it. Brittain poignantly describes how this new fresh-faced generation experienced her grief as passé.

Vera Brittain in her English Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse uniform.
GL Archive/Alamy Stock Photo

These first world war writers did consciously speak as the voice of a specific “lost generation”. But like any such label, this also obscures a more complex reality.

Not all first world war soldiers were in the first flush of youth like Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves, Remarque and Sherriff. In fact, men were recruited up to the age of 41 in Britain, 43 in Russia, 48 in France and 50 in Austria-Hungary.

As a result, between 3 million and 4 million women were widowed by the war, and between 6 million and 8 million children were left fatherless. On this reckoning, there is probably more than one first world war generation.

This complexity highlights one of the tricky things about the generations concept. It refers both to relationships within families (parents and children) and to commonalities beyond the family, among contemporaries across society. Sometimes these two dimensions align neatly, as in the “lost generation”, but sometimes they don’t, like for those older soldiers who don’t fit inside that label.

Why generational labels matter

My research has shown that generational ideas are real and do matter – but need to be handled with care.

Generation talk all too often slips into generalisation, which can then be used to sow division. The word “generationalism” has been coined by researchers to highlight this issue.

To counteract this, a network of researchers and third sector colleagues, led by myself and sociologist Jennie Bristow, have worked together to produce a guide entitled Talking About Generations: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself, which encourages people working with the concept of generation to pause and check their motivations and meaning before using the term.

Labels like “the voice of a generation” always depend on speculating about what other people are thinking and feeling. This risks flattening and homogenising generational experience – not all millennials are Sally Rooneys, after all.

Rooney herself has said in an interview: “I certainly never intended to speak for anyone other than myself.” Any “voice of a generation” needs, in practice, to be plural “voices”.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here. Läs mer…

The Australian government has committed A$95 million to fight a virulent strain of bird flu wreaking havoc globally.

With the arrival of millions of migratory birds this spring, there is an increased risk of a deadly strain arriving in Australia, known as highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1.

Australia is the only continent free of this rapidly spreading strain. Overseas, HPAI H5N1 has been detected in poultry, wild birds and a wide range of mammals, including humans. But our reprieve will likely not last forever.

As Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek warned on Monday, “the awful reality of this disease is that – like the rest of the world – we will not be able to prevent its arrival”. HPAI H5N1 is like nothing we’ve seen in Australia. The extra funding, which is in addition to Australia’s current biosecurity budget, will help us prepare and respond.

A trail of destruction

Avian influenza is a virus that infects birds, but can infect other animals.

In Australia we have various strains of avian influenza that don’t cause disease, referred to as low pathogenic avian influenza. While these viruses occur naturally Australian wild birds, it is the disease-causing strains, such as HPAI H5N1 and HPAI H7 we are worried about. These HPAI strains have enormous consequences for wild birds, domestic animals, and animal producers and workers.

HPAI H5N1 first emerged in Asia in 1996, and has been circulating in Asian poultry for decades. Following genetic changes in the virus, it repeatedly jumped into wild birds in 2014, 2016 and again in 2020, after which it caused an animal pandemic, or panzootic.

Starting in 2021, the virus rapidly spread. First, from Europe to North America in 2021. Then into South America in 2022. There, in South America, the virus caused the death of more than 500,000 wild birds and 30,000 marine mammals.

While we had seen large outbreaks in wild birds globally, the huge outbreaks in seals and sea lions in South America was unprecedented. With this came substantial concern that the virus was spreading from mammal to mammal, rather than just bird to bird or bird to mammal, as was happening elsewhere.

About a year after arriving in South America, the virus was detected in the sub-Antarctic, and a few months later, on the Antarctic Peninsula.

Australia and New Zealand are still free of the virus, for now.

The rising death toll

Beyond wildlife, HPAI H5N1 is having a huge impact on poultry.

In 2022 alone, it caused 130 million poultry across 67 countries to die of the illness or be euthanased because they were infected.

In contrast, earlier this year Australia’s biggest avian influenza outbreak to date – caused by a different strain, HPAI H7 – caused the death or destruction of 1.5 million chickens. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to what is occurring globally.

Concerningly, in the United States, the virus has jumped into dairy cattle and so far has affected more than 200 dairy herds in 14 states. It has also jumping into humans: in the past ten days alone, six human cases have occurred – all in dairy workers in California.

Given HPAI H5N1 has spread around the globe, the risk of the virus entering Australia has increased.

In a recent risk assessment, my colleague and I identified two main pathways for H5N1 into Australia.

The most likely route is that H5N1 is brought in from Asia by long-distance migratory birds. Birds such as shorebirds and seabirds arrive in the millions each spring from Asia (and in some cases as far away as Alaska).

A second route is with ducks. If the virus spreads across the Wallace Line (a biogeographical boundary that runs through Indonesia), it will come into contact with endemic Australian duck species.

Unlike shorebirds and seabirds, ducks are not long-distance migrants, and don’t migrate between Asia and Australia. That endemic Australian ducks are not exposed to this virus because they don’t migrate to Asia may be one of the reasons why H5N1 has not yet arrived in Australia.

Unlike shorebirds and seabirds, ducks are not long-distance migrants so they haven’t been exposed to H5N1.
Wille & Klaassen (2023), Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, Author provided (no reuse)

So, what’s the plan?

The Australian government’s new $95 million funding commitment is a crucial response to the heightened level of risk, and the dire consequences if H5N1 entered the country.

The funding is divided between environment, agriculture and human health – the three pillars of the “One Health” approach.

Broadly, the money will be spent on:

enhancing surveillance to ensure timely detection and response if the disease enters and spreads in animals within Australia
strengthening preparedness and response capability to reduce harm to the production sector and native wildlife
supporting a nationally coordinated approach to response and communications
taking proactive measures to protect threatened iconic species from extinction
investing in more pre-pandemic vaccines to protect human health.

Importantly, the funding covers preparedness, surveillance and response.

Preparedness includes proactive measures to protect threatened birds – for example, vaccination or reducing other threats to these species) and improving biosecurity.

Surveillance is essential to catch the virus as soon as it arrives and track its spread. Australia already has a wild bird surveillance program which, among other things, investigates sick and dead wildlife as well as sampling “healthy” wild birds. The additional commitment will bolster these activities.

Response will include things like better and faster tests. It will also include funding for practical on-ground actions to limit the spread and impacts of HPAI H5N1 for susceptible wildlife. This might include a vaccination program for vulnerable threatened species, as an example.

Work has already begun

This funding is a long-term investment, and mostly allocated to future activities. In the short term, my colleagues and I have already begun our spring surveillance program.

We aim to test about 1,000 long-distance migratory birds arriving in Australia for avian influenza. Based on our risk assessments, we are focusing on long-distance migratory seabirds such as the short-tailed shearwater, and various shorebirds including red-necked stints, arriving from breeding areas in Siberia.

This surveillance program is supported by, and contributes to, the national surveillance program managed by Wildlife Health Australia

In addition to our active surveillance, we need your help! If you see sick or dead wild birds or marine mammals, call the Emergency Animal Disease Watch Hotline on 1800 675 888.

In addition, the Wildlife Health Australia website offers current advice for:

For more information, visit birdflu.gov.au or Wildlife Health Australia’s avian influenza page Läs mer…

The process of removing Kenya’s deputy president Rigathi Gachagua is part of a long history, dating back to independence, of fallouts between the president and his deputy. The difference this time around is the process.

Historically, presidents have fired their deputies. But the adoption of a new constitution in 2010, saw the introduction of a process for impeachment – for both the president and the deputy – that’s run by the legislature. This is the first time it’s been used.

On 8 October 2024, members of Kenya’s national assembly voted to impeach Gachagua on grounds that included corruption, insubordination and ethnically divisive politics. The case now moves to the senate where members will hear the charges – and Gachagua’s defence – and vote.

If at least two-thirds of senate accept the charges, and Gachagua’s legal challenges fail, then Gachagua will make history as Kenya’s first deputy leader to be impeached.

So far, President William Ruto has stayed silent on the matter, but the process would not be proceeding without his blessing.

Amid the novelty of the impeachment process, it’s easy to forget that it is the norm for Kenyan presidents to fall out with their deputies. As a political scientist interested in Kenya’s ethnic politics and democratisation, I argue that this is because of how deputies are selected in the first place.

Deputies are initially selected largely on pragmatic grounds as people who bring something useful to a political alliance. This could be resources, a support base or a reputation for being a good technocrat or administrator.

They’re not usually people with whom the president has a strong and continuous personal relationship or someone with whom they share a clear political ideology. Neither are they usually someone who has made their way up through a political party.

This has brought about a long history of tensions and fallout between Kenya’s presidents and their deputies.

History of fallouts

Independent Kenya’s first vice president, Oginga Odinga, saw his ministerial portfolio gradually reduced by President Jomo Kenyatta. Kenyatta then replaced Odinga as vice president of the ruling Kenya African National Union (Kanu) in 1966 further undermining his powers. Soon after, Odinga joined the opposition Kenya’s People’s Union.

His successor, Joseph Murumbi, resigned within months. The official reason given was ill health, but it is widely believed that Murumbi was troubled by corruption and authoritarianism within the Kenyatta regime.

Kenya’s second president, Daniel arap Moi, elected Mwai Kibaki as his first deputy. Kibaki was dropped after a decade. He went on to form an opposition party as soon as Kenya shifted to multi-party politics in 1992.

Moi’s second vice president, Josephat Karanja, resigned after a year to avoid a vote of no confidence for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government.

Moi’s third deputy, George Saitoti was sidelined to pave way for Uhuru Kenyatta’s nomination as the party flagbearer in 2002. Moi’s final deputy, Musalia Mudavadi, fell with the rest of the Kanu government in the 2002 elections.

As Kenya’s third president, Kibaki similarly oversaw a regular change of guard. His first deputy, Michael Wamalwa, died after a few months in office. His second, Moody Awori, lost his seat in the 2007 election.

Kibaki’s third deputy, Kalonzo Musyoka, joined the president during Kenya’s post-election violence of 2007-08. He left at the end of his term in 2013 to run with Raila Odinga in the 2013, 2017 and 2022 presidential elections.

Kenya’s fourth president, Uhuru Kenyatta, was the only leader to have the same deputy, William Ruto, for his full term as president – from 2013 to 2022. However, relations between Kenyatta and Ruto were hardly rosy. The two fell out after the 2017 elections as Kenyatta teamed up with long-standing opposition leader, Raila Odinga. Ruto beat Odinga, Kenyatta’s favoured candidate in the 2022 elections.

Lessons to learn

Because deputies are selected for their practical value, the person who made a good deputy at one point in time can come to be seen as a liability or threat as the political context changes.

For example, at independence, Oginga Odinga made an excellent ally for Jomo Kenyatta. He had some resources and was a proven mobiliser. He brought a support base. However, within a few years, Odinga became a problem for the president as a more radical faction within the ruling party coalesced around him.

Similarly, Ruto made an excellent ally for Uhuru Kenyatta when they both faced charges for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court. The two fell out once Kenyatta had won his second and final term, and Kenyatta turned to his succession.

Gachagua was useful to Ruto in 2022. He had personal wealth, was an effective mobiliser and hailed from central Kenya where the election looked to be won or lost. However, once elected, Gachagua’s populist statements and reputation for ethnic bias became more of a liability.

Second, as contexts change, someone else can soon come to be seen as more useful as second in command.

For Jomo Kenyatta, Moi had shown his utility and loyalty during the “little general elections” of 1966, which effectively sidelined the Kenya People’s Union and Oginga Odinga.

Kithure Kindiki, Kenya’s interior cabinet secretary, is the current frontrunner to replace Gachagua. He is seen as better able to negotiate with the international community, especially during a critical economic period for Kenya as it seeks new International Monetary Fund loans.

Third, being the country’s vice or deputy president comes with a lot of opportunities to network. These interactions have often led individuals to be seen as a growing threat, or as actively plotting against the president. They may also be seen as a future challenger.

History has shown that there is no ideal way of dealing with such a potential challenger, leading subsequent presidents to try different approaches.

Current context

Ruto and Gachagua have clearly fallen out. Their differences became apparent soon after the 2022 elections. However, they came into sharp relief in the face of anti-tax protests in June 2024. There were subsequent allegations that Gachagua and some of his allies had helped to finance the protests.

The question, therefore, isn’t why they have fallen out but why Gachagua is being impeached now.

Ultimately the answer to this can only be known by a few individuals. But perhaps an indication of the answer lies in the emotions the fallout has stirred: a desire to distract the public and show that the government is taking action to deal with Kenya’s ongoing economic crisis. There may also be a desire to undercut Gachagua before he can build national networks.

Ruto has the numbers in the senate to see the impeachment process through. But this is a dangerous game. Those sidelined have a habit of coming back to haunt their former allies.

At the moment, most Kenyans are supportive of the impeachment process, but many also feel that Gachagua is being unfairly targeted especially in central Kenya, where a majority oppose the process.

While a successful impeachment might see Gachagua barred from holding public office, this wouldn’t necessarily mean an end to his career as an effective political mobiliser.

The next few months – and the narratives that emerge about why Ruto and Gachagua fell out – will be critical in determining both their futures. Läs mer…

When Tony Blair came to power in 1997 as the first Labour prime minister in a generation, his government became associated with the phrase “we’re all middle class now”.

In the second part of Know Your Place: what happened to class in British politics, a podcast series from The Conversation Documentaries, we look back at a century of class in British politics to understand why Blair’s decision to move Labour away from the working class was such a watershed moment.

The British Labour party was created in 1900 by trade unionists who wanted to give a voice to working class people. At the time, the class structure was rigid and only property-owning men over the age of 21 could vote.

But the rupture of the first world war ushered in universal adult suffrage, and with it, says Mark Garnett, senior lecturer in politics at Lancaster University, a feeling among opponents of the Labour party that it would eventually become the main electoral force. He says:

When we get to the middle part of the 20th century, being a supporter of the Labour party was something that one inherited almost … it would certainly be very peculiar if you were a very conscious member of the working class who didn’t also see yourself as a Labour party supporter.

After the second world war and the election of Clement Attlee as Labour prime minister, class still looked firmly cemented into British political allegiances, as Martin Farr, senior lecturer in contemporary British history at Newcastle University explains.

The most dramatic illustration of class I can give you is in the 1951 general election: 98% of voters voted Conservative or Labour. No other parties mattered.

Thatcher’s greatest achievement

For Farr, the political and economic turmoil of the 1970s, ending in the winter of discontent under the Labour government of James Callaghan, marked the beginning of the end of this political arrangement, paving the way for the election of Margaret Thatcher as Conservative prime minister.

Margaret Thatcher said that her greatest achievement was Tony Blair. The Thatcher years created a different sort of Labour Party … which necessarily wasn’t the party of trade unions to the same extent because there were weaker trade unions and fewer trade unionists.

After 17 years of Conservative rule, Blair’s election in 1997 brought Labour back into power. But its attitude toward its working class base had changed.

Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, says Blair’s advisers realised that the working class in Britain was shrinking and that, unlike the past, Labour couldn’t put together a winning electoral coalition based purely on working-class voters. But he also says they wanted to build a cross-class coalition.

They spent more time rhetorically appealing to the middle-class votes and thought the working-class vote will look after itself as long as they got the economy and public services right. And perhaps they should have done more … to appeal to both sides of that electoral coalition, that cross-class coalition that they hoped to build. 

For more analysis, listen to the full episode of Know Your Place: what happened to class in British politics on The Conversation Documentaries, which also includes interviews with the former Labour MPs Reg Race and David Hanson, who is now a member of the House of Lords and minister of state for the Home Office.

A transcript is available on Apple Podcasts.

Know Your Place: what happened to class in British politics is produced and mixed by Anouk Millet for The Conversation. It’s supported by the National Centre for Social Research.

Newsclips in the episode from AP Archive, New Labour, British Movietone, British Pathé, SirEdwardHeath and ITN Archive.

Listen to The Conversation Documentaries via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. Läs mer…

Tito Mboweni, former South African Reserve Bank Governor, Minister of Finance, and Minister of Labour was arguably one of the country’s most consequential economic policymakers and drove several significant economic
reforms.

Mboweni passed away on 12 October 2024 after a short illness.

Born on 16 March 1959, he received a Bachelor of Arts in Economic and Political Science from the National University of Lesotho in 1985. He had attended the University of the North between 1979 and 1980 but left South Africa to go into exile in his second year of studies. In 1987, he obtained a Master of Arts in Development Economics from the University of East Anglia in the UK.

He began his career in government as Minister of Labour in President Nelson Mandela’s 1994 administration. As the first Minister of Labour in the new democratic South Africa, he took several steps to improve the relationship between business and labour.

Among these were major legislative reforms, including the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, Labour Relations Act, Mines Health Safety Act and the NEDLAC Act, designed to improve cooperation between different “constituencies” – labour, business, and government.

He was appointed as the Eighth Governor of the South African Reserve Bank in
1999. In this role he introduced inflation targeting and presided over the first monetary policy committee meetings. This substantially modernised the Bank’s approach. For instance, Mboweni introduced a monetary policy statement outlining the reasons for the Bank’s decisions. These were televised, bringing new transparency to the conduct of monetary policy. Before this, the bank’s targeted monetary policy aggregates, and its communications, were made through printed documents.

Monetary Policy Forums took monetary policy to many parts of the country, bringing a new openness and engagement between the Bank and ordinary South Africans.

He held the position of Governor until 2009. But his legacy endures. The South African Reserve Bank is highly regarded across the world, with an inflation rate that is firmly within the target range and well-anchored inflation expectations.

As finance minister

Shortly after Cyril Ramaphosa was inaugurated as President of the Republic of South Africa in 2018, the then Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene resigned. The President appointed Mboweni as Minister of Finance in October 2018.

Mboweni made three consequential decisions in South Africa’s economic policy
trajectory.

The first was the decision, in 2019, to freeze government wages from 2020. He was alarmed by the rapid and unsustainable increase in government wages. Together with slowing economic growth, this led to a fiscal position that was deteriorating at an alarming pace. The wage freeze ultimately started the slow return to the fiscal rectitude that had been the hallmark of the period of government before Jacob Zuma became president in 2009.

The second, also in 2019, was the publication of a paper on economic growth. It was known officially as “Economic transformation, inclusive growth, and competitiveness: Towards an Economic Strategy for South Africa”.

Unofficially it was known as the “Tito Paper”.

This set out a programme of much-needed economic reforms – including steps to lift the restrictions on private power generation. In the six years since the publication of the policy paper (and the subsequent reforms), a total of 6 GW of non-Eskom electricity has been added to the grid, saving South Africa six stages of load-shedding.

Other recommendations of the paper are being followed, including those for rail, telecommunications and ports.

The third was the introduction of a comprehensive response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This included a significant expansion of the grants system, with a Social Relief of Distress grant pegged at R350 per person per month. Research by the NIDS-CRAM initiative, led by Dr Nic Spaull of Stellenbosch University, has highlighted how the grant positively affected millions of people’s lives.

Enduring legacy

It is difficult to think of any other economic policymaker who has left such an enduring legacy.

Stellenbosch University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2010 and appointed him Professor Extraordinary of Economics from 2002 to 2005 . He was a frequent participant at Bureau for Economic Research conferences. There, his engaging speaking style made him a popular drawcard.

His love of red wine and engaging conversation made him a popular visitor at the university. In 2010, he spent time at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies as part of a research group working on the global financial crisis and its consequences for democracy.

This is an edited version of a tribute published by the Bureau for Economic Research, Stellenbosch University. Läs mer…

It is sad to write about Tito Mboweni in the past tense.

Tito Titus Mboweni, who was born on 16 March 1959 in Tzaneen, a town in South Africa in what was then the Transvaal, passed away after a short illness in Johannesburg on 12 October 2024.

After the announcement of his death, tributes poured in for this South African leader. Many have been touched by his legacy in politics, business, governance and the economy of South Africa.

While not without some shortcomings, his career from being a freedom fighter to becoming a trusted and popular public figure serves as an enduring example to others in leadership.

A career in service of society

During his lifetime, Mboweni managed to achieve multiple accomplishments. The first period of his career was as member of the African National Congress (ANC) liberation movement in exile, where he served as deputy head of the Department of Economic Policy in the ANC.

Political and public service was a second part of his career.

After the democratic elections of 1994, Mboweni served as minister of labour in the first cabinet of Nelson Mandela. In a surprise announcement in 1998, Mboweni was appointed as an advisor to the then governor of the South African Reserve Bank, Chris Stals. This was to prepare Mboweni for appointment as governor after the retirement of Stals.

Mboweni could not move directly into the position as governor, as section 4(2)(a) of the South African Reserve Bank Act states that the “governor shall be a person of tested banking experience”.

By serving as an advisor to Stals for a little over a year, Mboweni met this legal requirement. He was appointed as the eighth governor of the central bank on 8 August 1999.

At the time there were concerns about his commitment to the continuation of a policy of controlling inflation, ushered in successfully by Stals in the preceding decade. But Mboweni soon showed his commitment to the continued control of inflation.

He replaced the previous structure used for monetary policy decisions by Stals by establishing the Monetary Policy Committee in October 1999. This was in preparation for the adoption of inflation targeting as a policy objective for the bank.

After his retirement from the Reserve Bank, Mboweni commenced with the next stages of his career: a successful stint in business, which was interrupted by his return to politics. He served as minister of finance from 9 October 2018 to 5 August 2021. In this role he made it very clear that South Africa had to adopt a more prudent fiscal policy to avoid a too rapid growth in government debt. But this viewpoint made him unpopular with many cabinet and ANC colleagues, trade unions and others.

Once he left politics, Mboweni resumed his career in business. He also served the South African community in different ways. He held a number of appointments as honorary professor and was also a patron of the arts. He was also well-known for his enthusiasm for cooking, which he often posted about on social media.

Challenges

Mboweni had to withstand political pressure on the issue of the role of the Reserve Bank. He was exemplary in his protection of the autonomy and independence of bank, which is set out in sections 223 to 225 of the South African Constitution.

In this respect, he followed in the footsteps of Stals.

Politicians favour lower interest rates, particularly during election periods. But Mboweni was not afraid of being unpopular. He was steadfast in protecting the autonomy and independence of the South African Reserve Bank. Mboweni also led the central bank during the global financial crisis of 2008 . South Africa was one of the countries that did not suffer a banking crisis or collapse during that period.

Achievements

Mboweni’s single biggest achievement was his successful transition from an ANC freedom fighter in exile to his roles as senior politician, central bank governor and businessman.

His successful adoption of a policy of inflation targeting despite opposition was also a major achievement. Under Mboweni’s leadership the South African Reserve Bank showed critics that South Africa can make a continuous commitment to a low rate of inflation.

Other than establishing the Monetary Policy Committee, Mboweni also played a major role in bringing monetary policy closer to the people. Under his leadership, the bank was one of the first central banks in the world to announce monetary policy decisions about interest rates at a media conference. He also introduced the central bank’s Monetary Policy Forums, where the public can engage the senior leadership of the central bank on monetary policy.

Shortcomings

Mboweni had many successes in business, central banking and politics. He also a few shortcomings. One was that he did not insist on the readoption of the lower inflation target (3%-5%) announced in 2001, that was later abandoned. A lower inflation target some 20 years ago would have anchored South Africa’s inflation rate and inflation expectations on a lower trajectory.

It is difficult to judge whether Mboweni’s somewhat untimely (though not necessarily unexpected) resignation as finance minister can also be regarded as a failure. However, a finance minister can only function optimally with the support of the head of state. Such support was clearly lacking.

Legacy

Mboweni leaves a legacy of a successful transformation from a freedom fighter to a businessman, central banker and politician. If more former freedom fighters made this successful transition, South Africa’s prospects would look considerably better.

Another legacy is honesty and integrity. Mboweni was never embroiled in scandals or questionable business dealings. If other ANC cadres could follow this example, South Africa would also offer a better future for all its citizens. Läs mer…