GeoLegal #48: My first book, "Unruly: Fighting Back when Politics, AI, and Law Upend the Rules of Business"
Today I announce my first book and give you a sneak peak into the core insight: The Unruly Triangle. You can support my research by buying a copy.
I’ve been waiting for months to announce my debut book and I’m really pleased to share it with you here first. 48 issues into this geolegal project and I realize that most weeks I’m struggling to figure out which of many events to write about - not to find something profoundly new in the world around us. The global uncertainty we live with every day delivered more than enough for a book—one you can now pre-order on Amazon (and I’d be grateful if you did, as pre-orders determine rankings). The book will be published by Wiley in March 2025.
“Unruly” is a wild romp through everything going on in the world today - from war without guardrails to weaponization of the law and stresses on democratic capitalism. From robot lobbyists to automated lawsuits. From tech companies that break all the rules to local governments that refuse to enforce the rules on their books. From the death of truth to the rise of deepfakes that will trick your employees to wire money to fraudsters and trick voters to cast their ballots under false pretences. I punctuate it all with the funniest or most unbelievable experiences I’ve had as a globe-trotting geopolitical analyst.
The title of the book is “Unruly” because the world is both volatile and undergoing a literal “un-ruling,” as the laws and norms that guided the globalization era are being unwound. This creates a host of risks for businesses who are left to manage constant change and the destruction of political, legal and compliance frameworks they take for granted. That this happens at a moment of profound technological advancement underscores the fact that businesses are already being subjected to unprecedented volatility and this will increase exponentially. CEOs, General Counsels and the internal and external teams and firms that support and advise them will all find something critical within.
The core insight of the book is to argue that today we face a confluence of political, legal and technological risks that are all challenging in their own right. In fact, businesses are organized to fight politics with politics, law with law, and tech with tech. But that’s no longer good enough because these challenges intersect to create new risks that require inter-disciplinary responses.
The Unruly Triangle, below, helps us understand this. Politics and law together create Geolegal Risk, like that which I write about every week. Politics and technology intersect to create Artificial Politics Risk that may bring us techno-authoritarianism or upend the entire political-economy of our countries due to technological unemployment. Law and AI intersect to create LegalAI Risk, like the automated lawsuits we wrote about in Harvard Business Review or the ability for your customers to pick fights with you because its cheaper to do so with technology.
Traditional frameworks for analyzing the world don’t help you with countering these synthetic risks. To say we live in a “polycrisis,” for instance, both mixes short-term challenges (war) with long-term challenges (climate uncertainty). That makes it hard to figure out where to take action. It also implies that businesses like yours are takers in this world and should shelter-in-place. You do not have to feel helpless in the world around you.
The central value of the book, in addition to articulating the wild world we live in, is about giving you a detailed strategy to fight back against each of these risks. For instance, if you know that AI is likely to eat the jobs of much of your staff, then you know that you face reputational risks if you let this happen. And you face an anxious workforce who may be looking for the exit. And a concerned populace.
To fight back today, you can take a clear position on whether you will let AI replace jobs in your company or not. If you plan to replace some jobs with AI, you can pledge to support your staff through retraining to find alternate roles in your business or elsewhere, as AT&T did last decade amid digital transformation. If you don’t plan to let AI replace core job functions, you can pledge that for the next few years, you will not let AI replace jobs in your business. This will make you a magnet for human talent and create an advantage.
In fact, you face the choice of whether to accept every single one of the risk vectors outlined in the book or to fight back. Jamie Dimon, head of America’s largest bank, recently spoke to the American Bankers Association and talked about dealing with government and regulators:
It's time to fight back…We don't want to get involved in litigation just to make a point, but if you're in a knife fight, you better bring a knife and that's where we are.
I agree and think this applies more broadly. It applies to every risk your companies are facing.
Smart companies will be proactive. Others, soon enough, won’t be companies at all.
You can pre-order the book on Amazon or get in touch if you want to discuss bulk copies for your team or clients. Thanks in advance for your support!
-SW