North Korea may soon reopen its borders to tourism. If foreigners begin visiting Pyongyang, then many will likely be fascinated by the city's pristine boulevards and litter-free streets. But this cleanliness only “highlights the regime's success in controlling the narrative and presenting an image of efficiency and purity to the outside world,” says RAND's Benjamin Young. If tourists venture outside the capital, they’ll find poor sanitation, homes without windows, and infrastructure in disrepair—a stark contrast between the sanitized image shown to visitors and the actual living conditions of the North Korean people. Read more »

Foundation models—a class of AI models trained on large and diverse datasets and capable of performing many tasks—may play a large role in shaping the economic and social effects of AI. A new RAND report looks at whether these models might create the conditions for a natural monopoly. (A natural monopoly occurs when the total cost of fulfilling market demand is lower for a single firm than it is for multiple firms.) The authors identify key reasons why the case for a natural monopoly is relatively strong. For example, the current generation of AI foundation models is reasonably homogeneous, economies of scale are high, and costs are largely sunk. Read more »