Hillary Clinton’s innovation advisor Alec Ross hopes the American people vote emphatically for Clinton over Donald Trump, should it come down to the pair in the race for the White House.
Ross was Clinton’s Senior Advisor for Innovation when she was Secretary of State, and is now helping her campaign as she seeks to gain the Democratic nomination.
Speaking to Bobby Kerr on Newstalk’s Down to Business on Saturday, he stated that he believes that "even Americans at their very worst" will still see through the rhetoric of a "vulgar" candidate like Trump.
"I can’t help but think that a competent, clear-headed woman like Hillary Clinton would squash demented, vulgar Donald Trump like a bug".
Turning to matters of business and technology, the author of The Industries of the Future said that trying to create copycat versions of Silicon Valley around the world would be a futile endeavour.
“Silicon Valley started doing this 20 years ago and they’ve got a huge head start. My advice to presidents, prime ministers and others is don’t try to recreate a Silicon Valley for the internet. Look at what the industries of the future are. Look at fields like the life sciences, look at artificial intelligence and robotics”.
Image: Shizuo Kambayashi / AP/Press Association Images
He noted that Ireland, however, has “positioned itself especially well” to ride the wave of innovation.
Highlighting the field of robotics as one of the most innovative, Ross predicted that the machines will continue to be integrated into the workplace to an even greater degree than they currently are.
"What’s happening now, which I think is a first, is because of the rising power of artificial intelligence, it’s increasingly the case that white collar labour will also be replaced. The robots of the cartoons and movies from the 1970s are going to be the reality of the 2020s."
Ross also discussed his work as the leader of a team responsible for stopping political assassinations in Syria, as well as creating an anonymous encrypted crime reporting program in Northern Mexico that took down to heads of narcotics cartels.
You can listen to the full interview below:
