The document discusses the future of the eurozone and whether the euro still makes sense going forward. It summarizes that: 1) When first introduced, the euro was expected to foster economic integration and growth within the eurozone, but this has not fully materialized. National governments have not fully embraced economic integration. 2) However, the euro has become a major international currency behind only the US dollar, fulfilling one original goal. 3) Reforms are still needed to the eurozone's policy system to improve economic performance and create prosperity. But countries disagree on the nature of problems and solutions, hindering meaningful reforms. 4) Unless agreement can be reached on governance and political reforms, the euro

1. opinion 15TUESDAY AUGUST 4, 2015
When Wolfgang Schauble, Ger-
many’s finance minister, recently ta-
bled the option of a Greek exit from
the euro, he wanted to signal that
no member could abstain from the
monetary union’s strict disciplines.
In fact, his initiative triggered a
much broader discussion of the prin-
ciples underpinning the euro, its
governance, and the very rationale
for its existence.
Only a fortnight before Schauble’s
proposal, Europe’s leaders had bare-
ly paid attention to a report on the
euro’s future prepared by European
Commission President Jean-Claude
Juncker and his colleagues from the
other European Union institutions.
But the new dispute over Greece
has convinced many policymakers
of the necessity to return to the
drawing board. Meanwhile, citizens
wonder why they share this cur-
rency, whether it makes sense, and
if agreement can be reached on its
future.
For currencies, as for countries,
founding myths matter. The conven-
tional wisdom is that the euro was
the political price Germany paid for
French acquiescence to its reunifica-
tion. In fact, German reunification
only provided the final impetus for
a project conceived in the 1980s to
resolve a longstanding dilemma.
European governments were both
strongly averse to floating exchange
rates, which they assumed would
be incompatible with a single mar-
ket, and unwilling to perpetuate a
Bundesbank-dominated monetary
regime. A truly European currency
built on German principles appeared
to be the best way forward.
In retrospect, German reunifica-
tion was more a curse than a bless-
ing. When exchange rates were
locked in 1999, Germany’s was over-
valued, and its economy was strug-
gling; France’s was undervalued,
and its economy was booming. Dur-
ing the ensuing decade, imbalances
slowly grew between a resurgent
Germany and countries where low
interest rates had triggered credit
booms. And when the global finan-
cial crisis erupted in 2008, conditions
were ripe for a perfect storm.
No one can say how Europe
would have evolved without the
euro. Would the fixed-exchange-rate
system have endured or collapsed?
Would the Deutschemark have been
overvalued? Would states have re-
introduced trade barriers, ending the
single market? Would a real-estate
bubble have developed in Spain?
Would governments have reformed
more or less?
Establishing a counterfactual
baseline against which the euro’s
impact could be assessed is impos-
sible. But that is no excuse for com-
placency. Over the last 15 years, the
eurozone’s economic performance
has been disappointing, and its poli-
cy system must answer for this.
What really matters is whether
a common European currency still
makes sense for the future. This
question is often evaded, because
the cost of exiting is deemed too
high to consider it (and could be
higher still if the break-up takes
place in a crisis and sharpens recip-
rocal acrimony among participating
countries). Moreover, pulling the
plug on the euro could unleash the
dark forces of nationalism and pro-
tectionism. But, as Oxford’s Kevin
O’Rourke recently argued, this is
hardly a sufficient argument. It is
the logical equivalent of advising a
couple to remain married because
divorce is too expensive.
So does the euro still make sense?
It was expected to deliver three eco-
nomic benefits. Monetary union, it
was assumed, would foster economic
integration, bolstering Europe’s long-
term growth. Instead, intra-eurozone
trade and investment have increased
only modestly, and growth potential
has actually weakened. This is part-
ly because national governments,
rather than building on currency
unification to turn the eurozone into
an economic powerhouse, tried to
hang onto their remaining power.
This was perhaps logical politically,
but it made no economic sense: Eu-
rope’s huge domestic market is one
of its main assets, and opportuni-
ties to strengthen it should not be
squandered.
Second, it was hoped that the euro
would become a major international
currency (particularly given how
few countries are equipped with the
necessary legal, market, and policy
institutions). And, according to re-
cent ECB statistics, this hope has
been largely fulfilled. With interna-
tional use of the euro behind only
the U.S. dollar, this achievement can
help Europe to continue shaping the
global economic order, rather than
sliding into irrelevance.
Third, it was (somewhat naively)
believed that the institutions under-
pinning the euro would improve the
overall quality of economic policy, as
though Europe-wide policies would
automatically be better than nation-
al ones. The acid test came in the af-
termath of the 2008 global financial
crisis: because it overestimated the
fiscal dimension of the crisis and un-
derestimated its financial dimension,
the eurozone performed worse than
the United States and the United
Kingdom.
If the euro is to create prosperity,
further reforms of the policy system
are therefore needed. But an agenda
can be designed and implemented
only if there is a broad consensus
on the nature of the problem. And,
as the ongoing dispute over Greece
illustrates, agreement remains elu-
sive: Participating countries have
developed contradictory analyses of
the causes of the debt crisis, from
which they derive contradictory pre-
scriptions.
Richard Cooper of Harvard Uni-
versity once observed that in the
early days of international public
health cooperation, the fight against
global diseases was hampered by
countries’ adherence to different
models of contagion. They all favored
joint action, but they could not agree
on a plan, because they disagreed on
how epidemics crossed borders.
That is the problem the eurozone
faces today. Fortunately, it is not
unsolvable, as significant reforms
like the creation of the European
Stability Mechanism and the launch
of banking union show. Disagree-
ments also did not prevent the ECB
from acting boldly, which illustrates
that the governance of institutions
does matter. But the fact that re-
forms and actions were undertaken
only lately, and under the pressure
of acute crisis, is a sobering re-
minder of the difficulty of reaching
consensus.
Europe cannot afford to procras-
tinate and pretend. Either the eu-
rozone’s members find agreement
on an agenda of governance and
political reforms that will turn the
currency union into an engine of
prosperity, or they will stumble re-
peatedly from dispute to crisis, until
citizens lose patience or markets lose
trust.
Clarity is a prerequisite of serious
discussion and ambitious reform.
Each of the major participants now
has an obligation to define what it
regards as indispensable, what it
considers unacceptable, and what it
is ready to give in exchange for what
it wants.
Jean Pisani-Ferry is a professor at
the Hertie School of Governance in
Berlin, and currently serves as com-
missioner-general for policy planning
for the French government. — Ed.
(Project Syndicate)
The ‘cowardly lion’
is make-believe, but
cowardly hunters are real
The robotics Cambrian explosion
By Ingrid Newkirk
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Every bad guy in history tries
to use it as a “get out of jail free”
card: I didn’t know what I was do-
ing was wrong. And that includes
overblown, overprivileged little
men like Minnesota dentist Walter
Palmer, who reportedly paid more
than $50,000 to stalk, wound and
kill a beloved, well-known lion
named Cecil. Even though Cecil
was wearing a tracking collar,
Palmer, who has spent his life kill-
ing all kinds of animals to behead
and hang on his wall, claimed igno-
rance of the lion’s protected status.
The details of what took place
are appalling, but while it is unu-
sual for the animal to be so well
known, do not think for a second
that what I’m about to describe
constitutes unusual conduct for
the pathetic white men who go to
Africa and elsewhere to gun down
wildlife.
According to news reports, after
luring Cecil out of his protected
homeland in Zimbabwe’s Hwange
National Park by tying a dead
animal to their truck as irresistible
bait, Palmer and his paid accom-
plices blinded him with a glaring
spotlight, making it easy for the
trophy hunter to shoot him with a
high-powered crossbow. But despite
Palmer’s extensive experience in
killing, it wasn’t a fatal shot. Cecil
lay hidden and wounded for 40
long hours, a steel arrow through
his body, before Palmer and his
party finally found him and shot
him to death. Palmer posed with
the dead lion, grinning from ear
to ear, before having his assist-
ants skin and decapitate Cecil for
his trophy wall, and then just left
his body to rot. Zimbabwe authori-
ties said the hunters also tried to
destroy Cecil’s collar to hide the
evidence.
Is it any surprise that someone
so devoid of empathy, understand-
ing and respect for living creatures
has already run afoul of the law?
Palmer pleaded guilty to federal
charges in 2008 for lying to a fed-
eral agent about where he had
shot a black bear in Wisconsin. He
and others had transported the
dead bear, who was killed 40 miles
outside a legal hunting zone, to a
registration station inside the legal
area. Palmer was sentenced to one
year of probation and fined nearly
$3,000.
Palmer is listed as a member of
the trophy hunting organization
Safari Club International. His kill
profile includes 43 victims, includ-
ing caribou, moose, deer, buffalo,
a polar bear and a mountain lion.
This is the same outfit that brags
that one of its “top priorities” is to
reduce the regulatory “burdens”
of importing hunting trophies into
the United States.
These animals were just living
their lives, going about their busi-
ness and raising their families.
What massive emotional disconnect
must one have to take joy from
such killing? All animals value
their lives, but to hunters, they are
nothing more than targets.
Palmer and others like him hark
back to the early 20th century up-
per class, which viewed plundering
of Africa’s wildlife as a pastime for
the privileged. But today’s trophy
hunters, with their high-powered
weaponry, beheadings and con-
tempt for fundamental human
decency, are wildlife’s ISIS. The
U.S. and Europe need to ban the
importation of heads, horns, feet
and other trophies — pronto.
Ingrid Newkirk is president of
People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals. — Ed.
(Tribune Content Agency)
Does the euro still make sense for the future?
Jean Pisani-Ferry
All animals value their
lives, but to hunters,
they are nothing more
than targets.
By Robert Cheek
Recently, the news is full of sto-
ries about HUBO’s first-place victo-
ry at the 2015 DARPA Challenge,
a contest in which the world’s most
advanced robots compete for a $2
million prize. HUBO’s victory was
a win not only for Korea’s robot-
ics endeavors, but also for the ad-
vancement of robotics around the
world.
Robotics and artificial intelli-
gence technologies represent the
start of an era in which humanity
will make its greatest advance-
ments. AI and robotics will merge
within the decade, giving rise to
AI bots, or artificially intelligent
robots. The AI bots will be the
transformative technology of the
millennium and may succeed hu-
man beings as the planet’s most
intelligent species.
As AI is a broad concept, we
will look at it in the context of its
integration with robotics. There
are three major categories for AI:
1) Artificial Narrow Intelligence,
which is also called Weak AI; 2)
Artificial General Intelligence,
which is also known as Human-
level AI or Strong AI; and 3) Artifi-
cial Superintelligence.
ANI is focused on one area. Our
world runs on ANI. Cars have
computers that determine when
to activate safety systems such as
antilock brakes, and companies
like Amazon know what products
you like by learning your behavior.
ANI has migrated from cyberspace
into the physical world thanks to
second-wave robots.
AGI is a computer that can car-
ry out the same intellectual tasks
as a human being, such as rea-
soning, problem solving, thinking
abstractly and learning from ex-
perience. The breakneck advance-
ments in hardware and innovative
experimentation with software
taking place simultaneously, will
cause AGI to emerge quickly and
unexpectedly. ASI as defined by
Oxford-philosopher and AI expert
Nick Bostrom as “an intellect that
is much smarter than the best
human brains in practically every
field, including scientific creativ-
ity, general wisdom and social
skills.” ASI can be a computer
that’s marginally smarter than a
human, to one that’s trillions of
times smarter — in every way im-
aginable.
Like AI, robotics is a broad con-
cept for which there are three ma-
jor categories: 1) First-wave robots
or “industrial robots”; 2) Second-
wave robots, the group in which
“service robots” and “industry 4.0”
belong; and 3) Third-wave robots,
or AI bots.
First-wave robots are expensive,
rigid, dangerous and dumb. They
perform simple repetitive tasks
and are suitable only for mass
production by capital-intensive
businesses. They require specially
designed facilities to ensure the
safety of humans. These machines
do the assembly work of an indus-
trial economy.
Second-wave robots are inex-
pensive, aware, autonomous, flex-
ible, safe and smart. They learn
and perform a variety of tasks.
In short, they work alongside hu-
mans, up close and personal. They
can also run facilities entirely in-
dependent of humans, leveraging
the Internet of Things, Internet-
connected products, to optimize
outcomes.
Third-wave robots, or AI bots,
will be endowed with AGI to make
them better at interacting with
human beings. In time, they will
evolve into ASI-enhanced AI bots.
Undoubtedly, a regulatory
framework for this brave new
world of legal challenges is needed.
But more importantly, we need
social safety nets for the socioeco-
nomic erosion that will come with
AGI and Emergence (Emergence is
when machines achieve ASI).
AI and robotics are already tak-
ing over professional and service
jobs. Lawyers, accountants, pilots,
teachers, and more are targeted;
while on the service front: cashiers,
clerks, customer service represent-
atives and drivers have replace-
ments coming online. There is a ro-
botic or AI solution being designed
for most jobs.
We must now reevaluate every-
thing that we think we know, put
in place safeguards from quantifi-
able risks and add buffers for the
unquantifiable. Some risks from
emergence are: 1) economic and so-
cial collapse from mass unemploy-
ment and the resulting social un-
rest; 2) extinction-level event that
makes us into the dinosaurs of this
era; and 3) hybridization-evolution,
or human-machine integration.
The AI bot Cambrian Explosion is
coming and with it an infinite com-
binations of outcomes.
Emergence and AI bots will ar-
rive sooner than expected due to
massive spending by corporations,
governments, rogue states and oth-
ers in their desire to secure their
“three wishes” — wealth, power
and immortality from the emer-
gence “genie.” And since humans
have sought these goals throughout
their entire history, imposing regu-
lations amounts to nothing more
than an exercise in futility, as the
stakes are simply too high.
The coming socioeconomic shift
may create unemployment of
an unprecedented scale during
the “adjustment phase.” The al-
ready widening gap between the
1 percent who control most of the
world’s wealth and the other 99
percent will only accelerate.
Fortunes will be made and lost
in the robotics revolution. Human-
ity now stands at the crossroads.
One road leads to abundance and
freedom. The other is the end of
the line.
Robert “Robb the Robot Guy”
Cheek is a research analyst and
editorial head at HMC Investment
& Securities, the investment bank-
ing arm of Hyundai Motor Group.
He has worked in robotics and
technology firms and advises inves-
tors and companies about service
robotics and AI. He can be reached
at r.cheek@hmcib.com. — Ed.
The views expressed in the contributed and syndicated articles on
Pages 14 and 15 do not necessarily reflect those of The Korea Herald or
its editorial staff. — Ed.
Articles and letters intended for publication on the opinion page should be
sent by email to sychon@heraldcorp.com and contain the writer’s full name,
phone number, occupation and address. Articles are subject to editing and
are expected to observe our word count limit. Submissions to “A Reader’s
View” and “Letters to the Editor” must not exceed 500 words. — Ed.
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