The Vultures Are Circling Wikipedia

I must admit, for several years now I’ve worried that my beloved Wikipedia could not survive in an AI era. Honestly, it’s hard to imagine that in a few years we all won’t just ask our AI assistant/overlord when we want information, although the AI tendency to hallucinate and spit out a totally plausible collection of truth and make-believe creates a bar that will have to be overcome.

Credit: Wikipedia

The good news is that AI doesn’t seem to be winning this particular battle yet. The bad news is that the war on “woke” may be a bigger threat, at least in the short term.

A new paper from researchers at Kings College London looked at the impact of ChatGPT on Wikipedia engagement, and offered cautious hope: “We find no evidence of an overall decline in Wikipedia engagement across the four metrics studied. Instead, page views and visitor numbers increased in the period following ChatGPT’s launch.” They did, however, find slower growth in areas where ChatGPT was available.

The authors cite several studies that indicate that, to date, ChatGPT responses are not viewed as favorably as Wikipedia’s, and point out that Wikipedia readers are not keen to see generative AI summaries of its articles. They note that ChatGPT’s capabilities are evolving, and cite other research that found that up to 5% of newly created articles in the English Wikipedia were written using generative AI tools. AI may be coming, but it’s not quite ready for Wikipedia-level prime time yet.

The authors see other risks to Wikipedia from AI. Professor Elena Simperl, Professor of Computer Science at King’s and Co-Director of the King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence, said:

Our work did not confirm the most alarmist scenario, but we’re not out of the woods yet. AI developers are letting their scrapers loose on Wikipedia to train them on high quality data, pushing up traffic to levels where Wikipedia’s servers are struggling to keep up. Generative AI summaries are also using Wikipedia’s data in web searches but not crediting sources, siphoning web traffic away while borrowing the platform’s work.

For free services like this, no-one stops to ask how it’s being paid for – and now Wikipedia is having to make the tough decision of where to allocate their limited resources to deal with this. It’s vital as a community we take steps to protect this important platform, and we hope to turn our work into a monitoring tool where the community can track how AI is impacting Wikipedia. 

Postdoc and first author of the study Neal Reeves suggests there are steps available to protect Wikipedia. “Ultimately, we need a new social contract between AI companies and providers of high-quality data like Wikipedia where they retain more power over their material, while still allowing for their data to be used for training purposes. Collaboration, like that seen in programmes like MLCommons, is needed to reach across the aisle and ensure that the next generation of AI models are trained well, but in a way that doesn’t destroy one of the free internet’s greatest resources.”

Speaking of destroying great resources, Elon Musk has decided that, as he found with Twitter, Wikipedia is too woke, and has announced his AI rival to it: Grokipedia. The vision: “Grokipedia is going to be the world’s biggest, most accurate knowledge source, for humans and AI with no limits on use.”

The announcement rambles on:

With Grok, Grokipedia aims for maximum truth through first principles and physics. It replaces partially masked evidences of how legacy media operates, rewriting with complete accurate context that cuts through the BS. this will combat the evil organizations and the evil minds that operating under the hood and who’ve poisoned minds for decades with endless fake news and distorted narratives through legacy media and Wikipedia, causing immense harm to young minds and manipulated the world long enough.

I.e., if you liked how Elon “fixed” Twitter, you may like Grokipedia. Of course, if you are not a fan of X, or have found Grok to be underwhelming and, at times, scary, Grokipedia may not be for you.

Credit: DogeDesigner

Elon is not the only one who thinks Wikipedia is too woke. Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger – who left it shortly after its founding – issued his “9 theses” calling for counteracting what he sees as left wing bias. His theses:

1. End decision-making by “consensus.”
2. Enable competing articles.
3. Abolish source blacklists.
4. Revive the original neutrality policy.
5. Repeal “Ignore all rules.”
6. Reveal who Wikipedia’s leaders are.
7. Let the public rate articles.
8. End indefinite blocking.
9. Adopt a legislative process.

Mr. Sanger believes Wikipedia doesn’t allow certain right wing websites (think Fox News) as sources, and says: “What I can tell you is that over the years, conservatives, libertarians, were just pushed out. There is a whole…army of administrators, hundreds of them, who are constantly blocking people…that they have ideological disagreements with.”

Tucker Carlson had Mr. Sanger on his podcast last week, and pronounced: “Wikipedia shapes America. And because of its importance, it’s an emergency, in my opinion, that Wikipedia is completely dishonest and completely controlled on questions that matter.”

Tucker Carlson and Larry Sanger. Credit: Tucker Carlson Podcast

Ted Cruz wasted no time joining the bandwagon, expressing his concerns in a letter to Wikimedia Foundation CEO Maryana Iskander. “Wikipedia began with a noble concept: crowdsource human knowledge using verifiable sources and make it free to the public. That’s what makes reports of Wikipedia’s systemic bias especially troubling,” Senator Cruz wrote. He also charged that the Wikipedia Foundation “financially supports left-wing organizations that contribute to Wikipedia content.”

Adding to the pile-on, White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks has suggested Wikipedia is “hopelessly biased,” alleging that an “army of left-wing activists maintain the bios and fight reasonable corrections.” Politico reported that Ed Martin, then D.C.’s interim U.S. attorney appointed by Trump, and the House Oversight Committee have also gone after Wikipedia for similar reasons

If you are someone who thought that the Biden Administration, the mainstream media, and social media platforms were right to try to get credible information out during the height of the COVID pandemic, this will all sound frighteningly familiar to you. If you are someone who thinks every point of view should be heard equally and that RFK Jr. makes a lot of sense, then you have your new target.  

Honestly, if Wikipedia is going to go down, I’d rather it be from a top notch AI than for it to be smeared as “Wokepedia” and drowned in disinformation. But I’m not sure I’ll have that choice.

And Yet It Moves

Science buffs will recognize the title as the (possibly apocryphal) quote Galileo muttered after he was forced by the Catholic Church to recant his assertion that the earth moved around the sun, contrary to church dogma. We’re in an era where it is the Trump Administration, not the church, forcing people and organizations to accede to things they don’t really believe in, whether they are law firms, universities, media companies, or big corporations, to name a few.  

Galileo at his Inquisition

That’s why I was so pleased when last week the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) not only didn’t take a knee about the Trump Administration’s dogma about climate change being a hoax, they also didn’t just mutter their objections. They issued a lengthy report outlining how climate change is very real, is largely due to human contributions, and is extremely bad for us and the planet.  

And yet it moves indeed.

The NAS was spurred into action by an EPA announcement proposing to rescind an Endangerment Finding issued in 2009 by the Obama EPA. “With this proposal, the Trump EPA is proposing to end sixteen years of uncertainty for automakers and American consumers,” EPA Administrator Zeldin said. “In our work so far, many stakeholders have told me that the Obama and Biden EPAs twisted the law, ignored precedent, and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year.” He was practically giddy.

Not so fast, the NAS report says. Its overarching conclusion: “EPA’s 2009 finding that the human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare was accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence.”

The report lists five key conclusions:

• Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from human activities are increasing the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere.
• Improved observations confirm unequivocally that greenhouse gas emissions are warming Earth’s surface and changing Earth’s climate.
• Human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases and resulting climate change harm the health of people in the United States.
• Changes in climate resulting from human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases harm the welfare of people in the United States.
• Continued emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities will lead to more climate changes in the United States, with the severity of expected change increasing with every ton of greenhouse gases emitted.

Pulling no punches, it says: 

In summary, the committee concludes that the evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused GHGs is beyond scientific dispute. Much of the understanding of climate change that was uncertain or tentative in 2009 is now resolved and new threats have been identified. These new threats and the areas of remaining uncertainty are under intensive investigation by the scientific community. The United States faces a future in which climate-induced harm continues to worsen and today’s extremes become tomorrow’s norms.

I.e., “And yet we are endangering ourselves, and the planet.”

Shirley Tilghman, professor of molecular biology and public affairs, emeritus, and former president, Princeton University, and chair of the committee that wrote the report, was more diplomatic: “This study was undertaken with the ultimate aim of informing the EPA, following its call for public comments, as it considers the status of the endangerment finding. We are hopeful that the evidence summarized here shows the strong base of scientific evidence available to inform sound decision-making.”

There was, of course, reaction. For example, Representative James Comer of Kentucky, the leading Republican on the House Oversight Committee wrote the NAS President to issue his concerns, calling the report “a blatant partisan act to undermine the Trump Administration.” Pretty much what I’d expect from him.

The current flap is very similar to the reaction to a “report” issued in July by a working group for the Department of Energy disputing climate change. That resulted in a scathing response by dozens of leading environmental scientists:

Our review reveals that the DOE report's key assertions—including claims of no trends in extreme weather and the supposed broad benefits of carbon dioxide—are either misleading or fundamentally incorrect. The authors reached these flawed conclusions through selective filtering of evidence ('cherry picking'), overemphasis of uncertainties, misquoting peer-reviewed research, and a general dismissal of the vast majority of decades of peer-reviewed research. 

Meanwhile, EPA is telling its scientists to stop publishing until/unless its political appointees approve of the research, similar to what has happened at NIH and NSF. Science isn’t supposed to be political, and suppression of convenient scientific findings can only last so long. Just ask the Catholic Church about Galileo’s theory.

If you’re still on the fence about climate change and think maybe the EPA has a point, I want to point out a couple of related studies issued recently:

Production Gap 2025 report: this report, issued by Stockholm Environment Institute, the Climate Analytics thinktank and the International Institute for Sustainable Development, points out that, although many countries have publicly pledged to reduce use of fossil fuels, they’re generally planning to increase production over the coming decades – more than doubling the amounts consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C.  

Indicators of Global Climate Change 2024: over 60 scientists from all over the world published this update, and as one of them said, “the news is grim.”

The report states: “The indicators show that human activities are increasing the Earth's energy imbalance and driving faster sea-level rise compared to the AR6 assessment.” Its indicators include greenhouse emissions, surface temperature changes, global land precipitation, and sea level rise. The authors warn: “This is a critical decade: human-induced global warming rates are at their highest historical level, and 1.5 °C global warming might be expected to be reached or exceeded in around 5 years in the absence of cooling from major volcanic eruptions.”

Health losses attributed to anthropogenic climate change: this meta-study summarizes a number of studies attributing climate change to impacts on human health, and concludes: “A clearer picture of the global burden of climate change could encourage policymakers to treat the climate crisis like a public health emergency.”

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So, sure, you can believe climate change is a hoax and that what we’re seeing is just “weather,” just as you can believe in the Emperor’s new clothes. If so, I have a bridge n Brooklyn you can buy, or you can just invest in Trump crypto.

As for me, I’m standing up with the NAS and others who continue to speak up about inconvenient truths (so to speak).   

Synthetic Life Is Cool - But Scary

I know many people are worried about the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meeting happening later this week – I am too – but from a longer term perspective there’s another meeting happening this week that we should also be paying attention to: the Engineering and Safeguarding Synthetic Life conference, in Manchester (U.K.). It is aimed at bringing together “scientists, engineers, ethicists, policymakers, and other stakeholders to explore the challenges and opportunities of building and regulating synthetic life.”   

Mirror image synthetic life isn't going to be quite that easy. Credit: Ting Zhu Lab

The conference has four sessions:

• Session 1 – Synthetic Cells: Advances in the creation of minimal and fully synthetic cells, highlighting new technologies and design principles.
• Session 2 – Synthetic Genomes: Cutting-edge progress in genome synthesis and engineering, including applications and long-term visions.
• Session 3 – Safeguarding Synthetic Life: Addressing safety, ethics, and science diplomacy, with a focus on responsible innovation and governance, including for mirror cells.
• Session 4 – Recombining Emerging Technologies: Examining how synthetic biology converges with fields such as AI, robotics, and materials science to enable new capabilities.

These aren’t sessions speculating about long range futures; these are sessions led by leading scientists talking about current work, in hopes of creating informed discussion about what more of us should be thinking about. The future is almost here.

It has a companion program -- Japan-UK Engineering Biology Meeting -- that follows, and in December in the U.S. the National Academy of Science will host a workshop Mirror Image Biology: Pushing the Envelope in Designing Biological Systems, “focusing on the state of the science, trends in research and development, risks and benefits of this research, and considerations relating for future governance of relevant enabling technologies.”

Serious people are taking this seriously.

Devoted readers may recall that three months ago I wrote about the Synthetic Human Genome Project, the goal of which is “to provide proof of concept for large genome synthesis by creating a fully synthetic human chromosome.” Or they may remember when I wrote last December about a technical report warning about the potential benefits and risks of so-called “mirror life,” whose DNA has the opposite chirality of all existing DNA.

Then, just two months ago, researchers from MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology announced they had modified an E. Coli to have only 57 codons, versus the 64 that essentially all DNA organisms have.  They call it Syn57, and Wesley Robertson, one of the authors, told Carl Zimmer of The New York Times: “Life still works…This reveals that there is nothing fundamental about the universal genetic code.”

We’re tinkering with the basics of life itself. Gee, what could possibly go wrong?

Credit: MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology

Mirror life is one of the areas that continues to draw attention. Kate Adamala, a synthetic biologist at the University of Minnesota, warned Mark Peplow of Nature: “There is no benefit of mirror biology that couldn’t be achieved other ways with normal biology. That’s not a risk I think we should be taking.” Dr. Adamala is chairing Session 1 of this week’s conference.  She was also one of the scientists who issued the Technical Report n mirror life last December; she knows of which she speaks, and she’s worried.

Not everyone is as worried. “Given all of the other ways in which technology is upending society right now, it’s a little surprising that this has gotten as much attention as it has,” David Van Valen, a bioengineer at the California Institute of Technology, told Mr. Peplow. “I think most of the concerns that people are raising are overblown.”

One of the leaders in the field, Ting Zhu at Westlake University in Hangzhou, China, is not attending this week’s conference but did author a companion piece to Mr. Peplow’s, Mirror of the unknown: should research on mirror-image molecular biology be stopped? Dr. Zhu takes the high road: “But in the face of vast unknowns, the noble path of pre-emptively protecting humanity from potential risks in the distant future can be slippery. And we should tread cautiously.”

Still, he points out:

Research in mirror-image molecular biology is still in its infancy. But scientists working in this field have been humbled by the tremendous challenges of exploring this unknown world ^5–14. The creation of mirror-image organisms, if it ever became feasible, would face monumental conceptual and technical barriers.

He adds that it took his team almost four years to construct a mirror image protein fragment of about 470 amino acids – the longest yet but still just a fragment. They’ve been working on a mirror image ribosome for almost ten years, “and are still years away from achieving it.”

According:

In short, it is crucial to distinguish mirror-image molecular biology from the creation of mirror-image organisms. A self-replicating cell has molecular diversity, metabolic complexity and structural intricacy that are orders of magnitude greater than what’s found in any currently synthesizable biomolecular system. And the creation of a mirror-image organism lies well beyond the reach of present-day science.

Dr. Zhu does think there are “endless possibilities” with mirror image molecules, such as more effective drugs, enzymes that could degrade plastics, even more robust data storage capabilities than natural DNA. It is important, he argues, that we don’t put a moratorium on the field, but he does agree with the purpose of this week’s conference, “establishing ethical boundaries would be to comprehensively assess near-term challenges and long-term risks across multiple disciplines.”

If one is cynical about China following such ethical guidelines, Dr. Adamala is not, at least when it comes to Dr. Zhu, telling Mr. Peplow: “He’s said he’s not going to build a living mirror cell, and that’s good enough for me,”

Well, maybe.

I’d be remiss if I failed to note that DARPA has just announced a Smart-Red Blood Cells (Smart-RBC) initiative, aiming “to engineer red blood cells to contain novel biological features that can safely and reliably modify human physiology.” It wants to identify “the art of-the-possible to create SRBCs to enhance human performance in austere environments and maximize survival via hemostasis products,” but also “unlock future capabilities including, but not limited to, improving thermal regulation in extreme environments, creating universal blood, accelerating acclimation to high altitudes, generating more resilient blood products.”

And you were worried about mirror image organisms.

Credit: Darpa

In some ways, this is very much like what is happening with artificial intelligence, only with much less money and much less attention. Both synthetic biology and AI could revolutionize our society and bring untold benefits, or they could conceivably lead to destruction of all life on earth. The trouble is, nobody really knows which will actually happen.

That's More Like It

Do we really have to wait 75 years for some 22nd century healthcare? Credit: Microsoft Designer

I’m always on the lookout for advances in healthcare that seem more like 22^st century medicine than what we still experience in 2025. Way too much of it seems less advanced than we should be expecting in a world of AI, genetic engineering, nanobots, and the like. I often think of the scene in Star Trek IV where Dr. McCoy finds himself in a 20^th century hospital and is appalled:

 

So I’m pleased to report on a couple of developments that seem like the future.

Transcranial ultrasound stimulation (aka “ultrasound helmet): You may not have ever heard of deep brain stimulation, unless you know someone who has advanced Parkinson’s, dystonia, essential tremors, or epilepsy. It turns out that electrical impulses to certain parts of the brain can help reduce the involuntary motions these conditions can result in.

The drawback is that deep brain stimulation is delivered by electrodes implanted deep in the brain. While this may not be quite as daunting as it sounds, people are still, you know, drilling holes in your head and pushing electrodes into your brain. You can imagine Dr. McCloy’s reaction.

Enter transcranial ultrasound stimulation. A new paper in Nature from researchers at University College London (UCL) and Oxford describes using a 256 element helmet to precisely aim ultrasound waves to accomplish the same results.

Our findings reveal this system’s potential to non-invasively modulate deep brain circuits with unprecedented precision and specificity, offering new avenues for studying brain function and developing targeted therapies for neurological and psychiatric disorders, with transformative potential for both research and clinical applications.

Professor Bradley Treeby, senior author of the study from UCL Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, said:

Clinically, this new technology could transform treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders like Parkinson's disease, depression, and essential tremor, offering unprecedented precision in targeting specific brain circuits that play key roles in these conditions. 

The ability to precisely modulate deep brain structures without surgery represents a paradigm shift in neuroscience, offering a safe, reversible, and repeatable method for both understanding brain function and developing targeted therapies.

Moreover, Professor Treeby asserts: “For the first time, scientists can non-invasively study causal relationships in deep brain circuits that were previously only accessible through surgery.” Similarly, senior author Prof Charlotte Stagg of Oxford University said: “The waves reached their target with remarkable accuracy. That alone was extraordinary, and no one has done it before.”

Dr Ioana Grigoras, a first author of the study from the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, agrees: "This novel brain stimulation device represents a breakthrough in our ability to precisely target deep brain structures that were previously impossible to reach non-invasively. We are particularly excited about its potential clinical applications for neurological disorders like Parkinson's disease, where deep brain regions are especially affected."

The research was primarily a proof-of-concept, but the team is already on the way to test the system on brain areas linked with Parkinson’s, schizophrenia, stroke recovery, pain, depression and other conditions. They hope to have the first clinical applications in a few years.

The current helmet is used in conjunction with an fMRI, but the team hopes to eventually be able to use AI to not require the fMRI. They’ve founded NeuroHarmonics to develop a portable, wearable version of the system, aiming to allow patients to use at home. Its vision is “to build what could become the gold standard for non-invasive neuromodulation, potentially transforming the lives of millions affected by brain disorders while opening new frontiers in brain-computer interaction.”

That sounds like some 22nd century medicine.

Person wearing ultrasound helmet. Credit: Treeby, et. al.

Electromechanical reshaping (EMR): When Lasik surgery was introduced in the late 1980’s, it sure seemed like some 21^st medicine. Lasers! Surgery without scalpels, and with greater precision! It was, indeed, a great step forward. But we’re in 2025 now, and it must be admitted that Lasik is not without risks. Plus, as Michael Hill, a professor of chemistry at Occidental College, points out: “LASIK is just a fancy way of doing traditional surgery. It’s still carving tissue — it’s just carving with a laser.”

Professor Hill thinks there is a better way. He and his colleague Brian Wong, a surgeon-engineer at the University of California, Irvine, believe a process known as electromechanical reshaping (EMR) offers a better option. Basically, it uses electrical impulses to reshape the cornea. No surgery required.

The researchers applied a small electric potential to a lens. Without getting into all the chemistry involved, after about a minute, the cornea’s curvature conformed to the shape of the lens — which is, they point out, about the same amount of time LASIK takes, but with fewer steps, less expensive equipment and no incisions. In other experiments, the team demonstrated that their technique might be able to reverse some chemical-caused cloudiness to the cornea — a condition that is currently only treatable through a complete corneal transplant.

EMR at work. Credit: Hill & Wong

“The whole effect was discovered by accident,” explained Wong, a professor and surgeon at the University of California, Irvine. “I was looking at living tissues as moldable materials and discovered this whole process of chemical modification.”

Professors Hill and Wong coauthored a proof-of-concept paper in 2023. “That paper was really about asking, is it even possible? Can we change the shape of a cornea without gross damage?” Hill told IEEE Spectrum. “Now, after two more years of work, we’ve systematically gone through the parameters—and we can say yes, it is possible, and we can do it safely.”

The duo tested EMR on rabbit eyeballs, not live rabbits, which will be the next step.  “Nobody’s getting this at the optometrist next year,” Professor Hill cautions. “Now comes the hard work—refining parameters, confirming long-term viability, and making sure treated eyes don’t revert back.”

Still, Professor Hill believes: “There’s a long road between what we’ve done and the clinic. But, if we get there, this technique is widely applicable, vastly cheaper and potentially even reversible.”

I hope I never need Lasik surgery, much less any other kind of eye surgery, but if I do I sure hope I don’t have to wait until the 22^nd century to get something like EMR.

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Cool stuff, both of these. And, in this current environment of attacks on science, I can’t help but include something else Professor Hill points out:

You don’t always know where basic research will lead. We were looking at electroanalytical chemistry, not eye surgery. But those foundational insights are what made this possible. If you cut off that basic research, you don’t get these kinds of unexpected, transformative opportunities.

Amen to that. That’s how we get to the future.

Where Innovation Clusters

We all like to think of the genius innovators coming up with Eureka ideas on their own, but most innovations don’t work that way. The pandemic helped remind us of the importance of proximity, that being with other talented people helps spur creativity. Those hallway conversations often trigger unexpected ideas and synergies. Talented people like to have other talented people around them, whether that is within a company or in a geographic region.

Well, you may have missed it, but there is a UN agency, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), that looks at such things, and has been issuing a Global Innovation Index since 2017. It released the 2025 Index today.

The top ranked cluster was Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou (China), followed by Tokyo-Yokohama (Japan) and San Jose-San Francisco (United States). Last year, the top two positions were reversed, while San Jose-San Francisco was 6^th.

Part of the shake-up in the ratings was inclusion of venture capital investments in the ratings; previously, only patent filing and scientific publishing data were used. "Venture capital investment activity helps capture how scientific and technological knowledge translates into start-up creation and, ultimately, new goods and services in the marketplace," WIPO said. The change helped San Jose-Sam Francisco rise, as well as London (21^st to 8^th) and Bengaluru (56^th to 21^st). Indian clusters benefited generally.

Carsten Fink, chief economist of the WIPO’s department for economics and data analytics, said: “We don’t just want to track science and technology activity. We also want to see how clusters turn ideas into entrepreneurship and ultimately new products and services that emerge in the marketplace.”

"Innovation clusters form the backbone of strong national innovation ecosystems, helping to anchor and strengthen the journey from ideas to market. The inclusion of VC deal activity in this year's GII cluster methodology is recalibrating our understanding of innovation strength, and these new results highlight which clusters are turning scientific research into economic results," WIPO Director General Daren Tang said in the report.

For example, WIPO noted that the top two clusters account for nearly one-in-five patent applications globally, and the top ten clusters accounted for 40 per cent of the world’s patent applications and 35 per cent of its venture capital deals

If only looking at patent filing volume, the top three are the Tokyo-Yokohama, Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou, and Seoul clusters, contributing 10.3 percent, 9 percent, and 5.4 percent of the global total, respectively. In terms of scientific research output, the top three are Beijing, Shanghai-Suzhou, and Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou, with 4 percent of the global total, 2.5 percent, and 2.4 percent, respectively.

"VCs fund technology enterprises, integrate resources, and reduce risks, thereby driving the rapid development of the technology industry. In turn, the prosperity of the technology sector delivers substantial returns to VC investors, attracting more capital inflows and further fostering innovation and upgrading within the industry. This dynamic interplay serves as a crucial driving force for innovation-led development during China's economic transformation," Yang Delong, chief economist at Shenzhen-based First Seafront Fund, told the Global Times.

It’s a virtuous circle.

Here are the top 15 clusters:

1: Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou (China)

2: Tokyo-Yokohama (Japan)

3: San Jose-San Francisco (United States)

4: Beijing (China)

5: Seoul (South Korea)

6: Shanghai-Suzhou (China)

7: New York City (United States)

8: London (Britain)

9: Boston-Cambridge (United States)

10: Los Angeles (United States)

11: Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto (Japan)

12: Paris (France)

13: Hangzhou (China)

14: San Diego (United States)

15: Nanjing (China)

If one accounts for population size, San Jose-San Francisco would come out on top, followed by Cambridge (U.K.).

Thirty-three economies have a cluster in the top 100. If you are someone who notices such things, the U.S. has 4 of the top ten, versus China’s 3, but in the top 15 each have 5. Among the top 100, China has 24 while the U.S. has 22. Germany is next, but only with 7. It is the third consecutive year China has had the most clusters in the top 100.

I think about this in light of the current war n science being waged by the Trump Administration, whether that is cutting NIH/NSF funding, firing federal scientists, attacking our top research universities, or using the phrase “gold-standard science” when what it really means is science that adheres to personal or political positions (I’m talking about you, RFK Jr.!). We’re losing a generation of young scientists, undermining out decades of research, imposing disastrous cuts on science agencies.  I mean, you cannot overstate the risk that American science is under, and that will have consequences to our innovation.

Talent is fluid. If the best scientific laboratories and research universities are no longer here, if the post WWII federal funding for funding for science and innovation dries up, then leading researchers will go elsewhere. Europe, Canada, Australia, and – you guessed it! – China are all rolling out the welcome mats for U.S. scientists.  

Venture capital is even more fluid. The U.S. has long had one of the most robust and forward-looking venture capital system in the world, which has been to our benefit, but the thing is, venture capital doesn’t respect borders. It seeks only returns. If there’s more innovations happening in clusters elsewhere in the world, VCs will put their money there.

It certainly doesn’t help that we’re discouraging international students from our universities, demonizing immigrants, even restricting H1-B visa for skilled workers. If we don’t want the smartest people from other countries studying and working here, there are plenty of other places where they can – and will – go.

It won’t be them who suffer the consequences.

The Global Innovation Index reminds is that innovation is truly global, and that the U.S.’s historical outsized footprint in innovation continues. But it also shows that it’s fair to say that China is by now at least our equal, and there are many other hotspots of innovation in the world eager to leapfrog ours should they falter.

I love science and innovation. I think it’s healthy that there are so many strong centers for them all around the world. I’ve long been proud of America’s preeminence in both, but I hate that we appear to be squandering it, letting China and others take the lead in inventing the future.  

I’ll be curious to see what trends the 2026 Global Innovation Index shows, but, I have to admit, I’m kind of scared about what the 2030 Index will show.

We Should Write a Really Stern Letter

On the heels of the disastrous floods in Texas, days away from the Hurricane Katrina twenty year anniversary, and with Hurricane Erin almost becoming another Hurricane Sandy, the dedicated employees at FEMA are worried. Very worried. They’ve got a President who repeatedly has called to dismantle the agency, a DHS Secretary who is more interested in photo ops and slow walking expenditure requests, and an acting administrator who has no experience in emergency management. Oh, and they’ve suffered losses of about a third of their workforce.  

Nice try, but that's not going to be enough. Credit: Microsoft Designer

So some of the more outspoken employees have written a letter.  That should do the trick.

The letter, which they call the FEMA Katrina Declaration, was signed by almost two hundred current and past employees (although only three dozen allowed their names to be public). They charge:

Since January 2025, FEMA has been under the leadership of individuals lacking legal qualifications, Senate approval, and the demonstrated background required of a FEMA Administrator. Decisions made by FEMA’s Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Administrator (SOPDA) David Richardson, Former SOPDA Cameron Hamilton, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem erode the capacity of FEMA and our State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial (SLTT) partners, hinder the swift execution of our mission, and dismiss experienced staff whose institutional knowledge and relationships are vital to ensure effective emergency management.

The letter goes on to list “Six Statements of Opposition,” calling to reverse various actions the Administration has taken that they believe impairs FEMA’s ability to fulfill its mission. Each seems perfectly reasonable, and none seems likely to result in action, at least unless/until disasters strike enough red states to force action.

FEMA spokesperson Daniel Llargues was not impressed, responding: “It is not surprising that some of the same bureaucrats who presided over decades of inefficiency are now objecting to reform. Change is always hard. It is especially for those invested in the status quo. But our obligation is to survivors, not to protecting broken systems.”

I probably wouldn’t have paid much attention to the letter, except it comes two months after some 90 NIH scientists issued their “Bethesda Declaration” to protest what has been happening to the NIH so far in the Trump Administration. Addressed to Director Jay Bhattacharya, it declared:

For staff across the National Institutes of Health (NIH), we dissent to Administration policies that undermine the NIH mission, waste public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe. Keeping NIH at the forefront of biomedical research requires our stalwart commitment to continuous improvement. But the life-and-death nature of our work demands that changes be thoughtful and vetted. We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety and faithful stewardship of public resources.  

The Declaration lists five categories of cuts the Administration has taken, about which they warn: “Combined, these actions have resulted in an unprecedented reduction in NIH spending that does not reflect efficiency but rather a dramatic reduction in life-saving research.”

Amen to that.

Director Bhattacharya was somewhat more respectful than Mr. Llargues in his response, claiming: “The Bethesda Declaration has some fundamental misconceptions about the policy directions the NIH has taken in recent months, including the continuing support of the NIH for international collaboration. Nevertheless, respectful dissent in science is productive. We all want the NIH to succeed.”

I don’t believe him. This Administration does not recognize any dissent as “respectful.”

I’m pleased to note that it isn’t just employees at FEMA and NIH who are protesting Administration actions that they believe jeopardize their mission. Staffers at other agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, and the National Science Foundation have published similar letters.     

The EPA letter, for example, flat out said: “Under your leadership, Administrator Zeldin, this administration is recklessly undermining the EPA mission,” going on to list five specific examples, and warning: “Your decisions and actions will reverberate for generations to come. EPA under your leadership will not protect communities from hazardous chemicals and unsafe drinking water, but instead will increase risks to public health and safety.” Over 600 staffers signed -- although all were anonymous. 

Similarly, 149 NSF employees – almost all of whom remained anonymous – expressed their “deep concern over a series of politically motived and legally questionable actions by the Administration that threaten the integrity of the NSF and undermine the civil service protections guaranteed under federal law.” The net result, they say, “collectively amount to the systemic dismantling of a world-renowned scientific agency” and “would cripple American science.”

And, in response to the August 8^th attack on CDC headquarters, over 750 current and former CDC staffers issued a blistering response to Secretary Kennedy, saying: “When a federal health agency is under attack, America’s health is under attack. When the federal workforce is not safe, America is not safe,” and accusing Secretary Kennedy of being “complicit in dismantling America’s public health infrastructure and endangering the nation’s health by repeatedly spreading inaccurate health information.”

Note that hundreds of CDC employees were terminated the week after the shooting, and, to the best of my knowledge, President Trump has never spoken about the shooting. Secretary Kennedy issued what has been described as a “tepid” response while managing to work in criticism of CDC’s pandemic response. Class guy.

Bravo to all the people at the various agencies who were willing to speak out. Call them bureaucrats, accuse them of being “woke,” strip away the protections that they’ve long relied on, and these brave public servants still want to speak out when they see their good work being crippled.

But I have to point out that almost none dared list their identifies, worried about retribution by the Administration and potentially even worse by MAGA supporters. These are the times we’re living in. And, of course, despite various legal actions, most of the Administration’s actions roll on virtually unabated.  

Letters, I fear, are not going to do it. This Administration doesn’t care about letters. We all need to protest, but note that President Trump just issued an Executive Order calling for the National Guard in each state to have specialized units for “...quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public safety and order whenever the circumstances necessitate.”  That’s you and me, folks. That’s what they think of our First Amendment rights.

President Trump may deny being a dictator or even wanting to be a dictator, as he did today, but if someone talks like a dictator and acts like a dictator, believe them. That’s a dictator.

So keep those letters and those lawsuits coming, but they’re not going to be enough. A lot of us have to speak up, stand up – and vote.

Distribute More of the Future Here

As seminal science fiction writer William Gibson (supposedly) once said, “The future is already here. It’s just not very evenly distributed.” My fear is more of it is being distributed in China, not in the U.S.

We’re supposed to be the country of big dreams. We’re supposed to be the country that invents the future and goes boldly into it (Captain Kirk, after all, was born in Iowa). The list of innovations America helped pioneer, the Nobel Prizes Americans have won, the amounts of patents we file – all speak to our faith in the future and our confidence that we’ll be the ones who get there first. But, more and more, we seem to be looking back, not forward.

I’ve written before about the Trump Administration’s war on science. Its attacks on many of our leading universities may be viewed as culture wars, but they are wars that our country is the casualty of. Historian Garrett M. Graff, writing in The New York Times, put it this way:

What America may find is that we have squandered the greatest gift of the Manhattan Project — which, in the end, wasn’t the bomb but a new way of looking at how science and government can work together.

He laments: “Today, just as China’s own research and development efforts take off, the Trump administration has been erasing this legacy,” and concludes by warning: “If China is able to capitalize on our self-inflicted wounds to invent and secure the future of the 21st century instead, we may find that we have squandered the greatest gift of the Manhattan Project.”

President Trump famously hates EVs, solar energy, and wind turbines, promotes more use of oil, gas, and “clean” coal, and considers climate change a hoax. Well, the future begs to disagree - and so does China.

Some examples:

The New York Times had an in-depth analysis How China Went From Clean Energy Copycat to Global Innovator. Its thesis, supported by several nifty charts and graphs:

Accused for years of copying the technologies of other countries, China now dominates the renewable energy landscape not just in terms of patent filings and research papers, but in what analysts say are major contributions that will help to move the world away from fossil fuels.

“It is the opposite of an accident,” Jenny Wong Leung, an analyst and data scientist at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told NYT, adding: “The sheer volume of Chinese investment has been so much larger than in the West. It meant they could build industries from the ground up, all the way through the supply chain.”

Credit: NYT (Source: European Patent Office, Espacenet)

Or there’s Jacob’s Dreyer’s essay, also in NYT, about China’s push in biotech. He asserts:

In its quest to dethrone American dominance in biotech, China isn’t necessarily trying to beat America at its own game. While the U.S. biotech industry is known for incubating cutting-edge treatments and cures, China’s approach to innovation is mostly focused on speeding up manufacturing and slashing costs. The idea isn’t to advance, say, breakthroughs in the gene-editing technology CRISPR; it’s to make the country’s research, development, testing and production of drugs and medical products hyperefficient and cheaper.

Mr. Dreyer thinks that the Trump cuts to research may mean that America’s biotech industry could go from a “homegrown dominance” to “Big American companies will be ever more dependent on the cost advantages and bright young engineers that China offers.”

Then there’s China’s efforts in robotics, As I wrote previously, “…when it comes to robots — especially AI-powered, humanoid ones — the battle may be closer to being over…and the U.S. is not winning.” Jeff Burnstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), told The Wall Street Journal: “They have more companies developing humanoids and more government support than anyone else. So, right now, they may have an edge.”

Last week China hosted the inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games, and while it was funny seeing robots sometimes fall down or swing wildly at another robot, the breadth and depth of its advances should not be trivialized. The Guardian noted that when it comes to the competition between China and the U.S. on AI, the Games illustrate that “…while the US still has the lead on frontier research, owing in part to Washington’s restrictions on the export of cutting-edge chips to China, Beijing is going all-in on real life applications, such as robotics.”

Or, finally, there’s the furor over “rare earth minerals” as well as other elements critical to modern electronics, such as lithium and copper. China’s recent threat to restrict exports of them put U.S. industry (and the military) in a state of panic. The U.S. used to lead the world in the mining and refining of these, and we still have huge sources of them. The trouble is, for the most part we no longer do either of those, ceding them to China.

I could go into the whole chip manufacturing debacle – again, we invented the industry, then gave it away – but that ground has been well covered. By now hopefully you get the point. China is eagerly looking ahead; we’re not.

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Dan Wang, a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, thinks he knows the crux of the problem. His essay in The Atlantic (adopted from his book Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future) posits that we have become a nation of lawyers, while China is a nation of engineers. Who, you know: Get. Things. Done.

He writes:

Think about it this way: China is an engineering state, which treats construction projects and technological primacy as the solution to all of its problems, whereas the United States is a lawyerly society, obsessed with protecting wealth by making rules rather than producing material goods. 

The U.S., he charges, “…has a government of the lawyers, by the lawyers, and for the lawyers.” We’re good at writing laws and regulations, taking people to court, and (for the most part) protecting intellectual property, but when it comes to actually building stuff, we’ve gone soft and slow. He says: “The United States has lost the ability to get stuff done as it focuses on procedures rather than results.”

We don’t want China’s reckless approach to environmental damages, its surveillance state, or its censorship of ideas, but, gosh darn it, it’d be nice for the U.S. to get back to making things and making them better.

Look, I’m a Boomer. My future is way shorter than my past. Some of that past I’m nostalgic about. But I’d sure like to see more of the future, and have more of that future invented here.