Introduction

Generative AI has become an incredibly attractive and widespread tool for people across the world. Alongside its rapid growth, AI tools present a host of ethical challenges relating to consent, security, and privacy, among others. As Generative AI has been spearheaded primarily by large technology companies, these ethical challenges — especially as viewed from the vantage point of ordinary people — risk being overlooked for the sake of market competition and profit. What is needed, therefore, is a deeper understanding of and attention to how ordinary people perceive AI, including its costs and benefits.

The Meta Community Forum Results Analysis, authored by Samuel Chang, James S. Fishkin, Ricky Hernandez Marquez, Ayushi Kadakia, Alice Siu, and Robert Taylor, aims to address some of these challenges. A partnership between CDDRL’s Deliberative Democracy Lab and Meta, the forum enables participants to learn about and collectively reflect on AI. The impulse behind deliberative democracy is straightforward: people affected by some policy or program should have the right to communicate about its contents and to understand the reasons for its adoption. As Generative AI and the companies that produce it become increasingly powerful, democratic input becomes even more essential to ensure their accountability. 

Motivation & Takeaways

In October 2024, the third Meta Community Forum took place. Its importance derives from the advancements in Generative AI since October 2023, when the last round of deliberations was held. One such advancement is the move beyond AI chatbots to AI agents, which can solve more complex tasks and adapt in real-time to improve responses. A second advancement is that AI has become multimodal, moving beyond the generation of text and into images, video, and audio. These advancements raise new questions and challenges. As such, the third forum provided participants with the opportunity to deliberate on a range of policy proposals, organized around two key themes: how AI agents should interact with users and how they should provide proactive and personalized experiences for them.

To summarize some of the forum’s core findings: the majority of participants value transparency and consent in their interactions with AI agents as well as the security and privacy of their data. In turn, they are less comfortable with agents autonomously completing tasks if this is not transparent to them. Participants have a positive outlook on AI agents but want to have control over their interactions. Regarding the deliberations themselves, participants rated the forum highly and felt that it exposed them to alternative perspectives. The deliberators wanted to learn more about AI for themselves, which was evidenced by their increased use of these tools after the deliberations. Future reports will explore the reasoning and arguments that they used while deliberating.
 

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^{The participants of this Community Forum were representative samples of the general population from five countries - Turkey, Saudi Arabia, India, Nigeria, and South Africa. Participants from each country deliberated separately in English, Hindi, Turkish, or Arabic.}

Methodology & Data

The deliberations involved around 900 participants from five countries: India, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Turkey. Participants varied in terms of age, gender, education, and urbanicity. Because the deliberative groups were recruited independently, the forum can be seen as five independent deliberations. Deliberations alternated between small group discussions and ‘plenary sessions,’ where experts answered questions drawn from the small groups. There were around 1000 participants in the control group, who did pre- and post-surveys, but without deliberating. The participant sample was representative with respect to gender, while the treatment and control groups were balanced on demography as well as on their attitudes toward AI. Before deliberating on the proposals, participants were presented with background materials as well as a list of costs and benefits to consider.

In terms of the survey data, large majorities of participants had previously used AI. There was a statistically significant increase in these proportions after the forum. For example, in Turkey, usage rates increased from nearly 70% to 84%. In several countries, there were large increases in participants’ sense of AI’s positive benefits after deliberating, as well as a statistically significant increase in their interest. The deliberations changed participants’ opinions about a host of claims; for example, “people will feel less lonely with AI” and “more proactive [agents] are intrusive” lost approval whereas “AI agents’ capability to increase efficiency…is saving many companies a lot of time and resources” and “AI agents are helping people become more creative” gained approval. After deliberating, participants demonstrated an improved understanding of some factual aspects of AI, although the more technical aspects of this remain challenging. One example here is AI hallucinations, or rather, the generation of false or nonsensical outputs, usually because of flawed training data.
 

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Proposals

Participants deliberated on nineteen policy proposals. To summarize these briefly: In terms of whether and how AI remembers users’ past behaviors and preferences, participants preferred proposals that allowed users to make active choices, as opposed to this being a default setting or only being asked once. They also preferred being reminded about the ability of AI agents to personalize their experience, as well as agents being transparent with users about the tasks they complete. Participants preferred that users be educated on AI before using it, as well as being informed when AI is picking up on certain emotional cues and responding in “human-like” ways. They also preferred proposals whereby AI would ask clarifying questions before generating output. Finally, when it comes to agents helping users with real-life relationships, this was seen as more permissible when the other person was informed. Across the proposals, gender was neither a significant nor consistent determinant of how they were rated. Ultimately, the Meta Community Forum offers a model for how informed, public communication can shape AI and the ethical challenges it raises.

The escalation between India and Pakistan over the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir is revealing important insights into India's evolving defense posture and military capabilities. Arzan Tarapore joins Michael McFaul to discuss what happened between April 22 and May 10, what the clash says about the security landscape of the Indo-Pacific region, and why it matters in global politics.

Arzan Tarapore is a research scholar at the Center in International Security and Cooperation at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. His work focuses on Indian military strategy and regional security issues in the Indo-Pacific. Prior to his scholarly career, he served for 13 years in the Australian Defence Department in various analytic, management, and liaison positions, including operational deployments and a diplomatic posting to the Australian Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Watch the video version of their conversation above, or listen to the audio below, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other major podcast platforms. 

TRANSCRIPT:

McFaul: You're listening to World Class from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. I'm your host, Michael McFaul, the director of FSI.

Today I'm talking to Arzan Tarapore, a research scholar at the Center on International Security and Cooperation, which is part of the Freeman Spogli Institute here at Stanford. His work focuses on India's military strategy and regional security issues in the Indo-Pacific, which is why he is the perfect person to talk with us today about the escalation earlier this year between India and Pakistan in the Kashmir region. And India's evolving military strategy more generally, as it relates to players like the United States, China, and Russia.

Arzan, welcome to World Class.

Tarapore: Thanks very much, Mike. It's good to be on.

McFaul: So, I want to start with a chat group I was on several weeks ago with a bunch of former U.S. government officials. And at one point, somebody interjected, “We are about to see the biggest military war in the world since Russia invaded Ukraine.”

And I have to tell you, I was taken aback. I don't follow issues between Pakistan and India as closely as I should, and I look forward to learning more about that now that my book is done and I have more time.

But that really startled me. Take us back to that moment. Help us understand what occurred that made people so alarmist, and then why that didn't turn out to be the case.

Tarapore: Yeah, okay, that's a very big question. Let me see if I can hit all the high spots. Look, the trigger for that comment, probably, was a terrorist attack that happened in India at a place called Pahalgam on the 22nd of April. And it was an attack that was conducted, as far as we can judge, by a Pakistan-based terrorist group that attacked innocent civilians.

And in particular, it was designed, it seems, to be as inflammatory, as provocative as possible, right? Because the terrorists were at a tourist spot, and they rounded up people and got those people to identify themselves — whether they were Hindu or Muslim — and they executed the Hindu men.

McFaul: Wow. Oh my God.

Tarapore: So it was designed to be as communal and as provocative as possible. And in that sense, it worked because the Indian government almost immediately was assumed to be poised to retaliate.

And this is interesting. This is notable, because about as recently as a decade ago, it was always an open question whether India would retaliate militarily against these types of terrorist attacks. And the situation has changed so much in the past decade that this time around it was almost assumed from the get-go that India would retaliate. And indeed they did retaliate.

McFaul: And they did.

Tarapore: And they did. And probably the reason that that member of your group chat said what they said is because India and Pakistan have, for decades, been poised with their militaries pointed at each other. These are very large militaries, very capable militaries. And nuclear armed militaries.

McFaul: Yes. Let's not leave out that small fact.

Tarapore: Exactly, right? Which is always overriding concern in Washington. So, it was President Clinton who, back in the 90s, called South Asia the most dangerous place in the world. He identified India Pakistan as the sort of scenario that if any scenario in the world was going to lead to a nuclear exchange, since the 90s there's been a strong case to be made that it would be India Pakistan. And that's always colored American thinking whenever there's a crisis between India and Pakistan and this time around was no different.

McFaul: And tell us how it played out, and how it ended.

Tarapore: So, the inevitable—that is, an Indian military attack—happened on the night of 6-7 May. So, in the very early hours of the 7th of May, local time. At about 1 a.m., India launched standoff attacks, meaning attacks launched by aircraft that did not cross into Pakistani airspace.

So the Indian aircraft stayed on the Indian side of the border and launched long-range munitions plus probably some loitering munitions, so sort of what some people call suicide drones. So, drones that are designed to go to the target and destroy the target and themselves.

S,o India launched these standoff attacks against nine terrorist targets, terrorist sites.

McFaul: And they were terrorist sites, right?

Tarapore: Yes. So there's a line of Pakistani information operations that suggests that civilians were killed. That may or may not be true. But certainly the Indian position is that they were terrorist targets and that the Indian claim is that the strike was designed to minimize civilian casualties as far as possible. Hence they attacked, for example, at 1 a.m., right, when places were probably not occupied.

McFaul: Got it.

Tarapore: So, a bunch of these sites were sort of in the countryside. And we know that because they showed the full motion video of the sites being destroyed by the missiles and they are just for some of them were just a building in the middle of the countryside or a couple of others that were terrorist headquarter complexes in the middle of cities and these are big sort of campuses that include living quarters and operation centers and mosques all on the same campus. And a couple of those sites were struck as well.

But again, at 1am and in a very targeted fashion to minimize civilian casualties. And by and large, they did a pretty good job of minimizing civilian casualties.

McFaul: So they could have done more and they chose this kind of response, right?

Tarapore: Exactly. And not only that, but they also in the subsequent press briefings, they were very clear in saying, “Listen, our quarrel is with the terrorists. We do not intend to start a war with Pakistan. We will respond if Pakistan responds to us. But we very deliberately have not struck Pakistan military targets or targets of the Pakistan state. We've only struck terrorists. And so as far as we are concerned, we have done what we needed to do. Now it's up to Pakistan to stand down and not retaliate.”

Of course, there was no chance of that happening. Pakistan did retaliate. And so then we entered a period of about three or three and a half days of tit for tat attacks between India and Pakistan. Again, all of them largely targeting each other's particular military sites; everything from sort of air defence sites to air bases on each side.

McFaul: On each side, right?

Tarapore: On each side.

McFaul: And did planes cross the line, or was it was the same kind of thing that you just described?

Tarapore: Planes never crossed the line, as far as we know. So, even though there were claims that some aircraft were shot down on the Indian side, and the Indian military leadership has subsequently conceded that, admitted that.

McFaul: So there were? That has been confirmed? I didn’t know that.

Tarapore: They have confirmed that they suffered some losses. They have not confirmed how many or what type. But it seems to be somewhere in the order of two to five Indian aircraft were shot down.

A bunch of Pakistani air bases were struck by Indian Air Force strikes. And this time around, unlike in the last crisis in 2019, the Indians were very assiduous in releasing battle damage assessment—photography and video—to prove they did actually hit these targets.

And through this whole process of about three and half days of tit for tat strikes, where the Indians scored a few big strikes against the Pakistan military and the Pakistan military did not really score any big hits against the Indian military. There were a few rounds that went astray and did sort of hit civilian targets, but by all accounts unintentionally. Through this all, the two militaries tried to keep things relatively proportionate. Neither one took big steps. They did not cross big thresholds to escalate.

But then on the last day, there were some concerns that Pakistan was in fact preparing for a bigger escalation. That's when the U.S., which had hitherto sort of tried to stay hands off, that's when the U.S. started making some phone calls to both capitals.

And then as probably prompted by that, prodded by U.S. pressure, Pakistan made a phone call to India—the Director General of Military Operations made a phone call to his opposite number in India—suggesting a ceasefire, which India agreed to. And that was the end.

So it was about a three and a half day stoush, little conflict, mostly run by missiles and loitering munitions. So no one crossed into the other country’s territory. It was a very sort of modern conflict in that sense.

McFaul: So, I want to get back to the Americans in a minute, but before that: what did you learn about Pakistani military capabilities and Indian military capabilities as a result of this?

Tarapore: So it was pretty interesting. It was very interesting, actually. Because for decades, basically throughout the 21st century, we have been worried about the prospect of a conventional war between India and Pakistan as a result of a terrorist attack.

And the mental model that we've always had is a large, combined arms, ground-centric invasion by India against Pakistan, right? Basically a war.

And for years, India has been trying to find options short of that in a way that would not prompt a Pakistan nuclear escalation. And it seems, after a couple of crises, that India has found a way to hit back at Pakistan militarily using these standoff capabilities that are relatively new in the Indian arsenal.

So, India has recently acquired a lot of these capabilities that have given it the strategic option to hit Pakistan without starting a war, So, when you ask, what did we learn about their capabilities, we learned that India has the capability to conduct these standoff attacks. And interestingly, from my point of view, the real star for the Indian military was air defense.

Whereas India managed to score a few good hits against the Pakistan Air Force and the terrorist infrastructure on day one, the really interesting thing was that despite Pakistan launching a bunch of mostly drone attacks against India, they did not score any significant hits. And this was a result of a layered air defense system that India has built up, which I was surprised by. The effectiveness was surprising.

McFaul: And where do their missile defenses come from? Are they Russian? Are they mixed?

Tarapore: I'm glad you asked Mike. They come from all over. A lot of it is indigenous.

McFaul: Indigenous! Okay, I didn't know that.

Tarapore: Some of it is indigenous, the shorter range. There's a surface-to-air missile called Akash, which is an indigenous system. There are some old legacy guns that the army operates that prove very effective.

But the really interesting thing that think that you would find in particular interesting is that the most sophisticated—which is to say, the most recently acquired and longest range system that provides the biggest bubble—was the S-400, which India acquired from Russia, much to the chagrin of the United States.

McFaul: Yes, the United States. It was a huge fight, right?

Tarapore: Yup! The U.S. threatened CAATSA sanctions against India for it.

McFaul: Tell everybody what CAATSA sanctions are. It’s a specific category of sanctions passed in the Trump administration, wasn’t it?

Tarapore: Yep, which is designed to deter countries from acquiring Russian equipment. So, the Indian deal to acquire S-400s was happening contemporaneously and the U.S. was always on the horns of a dilemma whether they should enforce CAATSA sanctions against India or issue a waiver.

As far as I recall, the U.S. decided to not make a decision. They never imposed the CAATSA sanctions, but nor did they issue an indefinite waiver. So it was always something that years ago was sort of hanging over the head of the relationship that the U.S. did not go through with sanctioning India. And the Indians now, after Op Sindoor, after this clash, now feel vindicated that in fact they acquired S-400s and you know what? They they proved to be extremely effective in protecting India.

McFaul: Super interesting. So they were right. I remember when we were trying to prevent the Russians from selling the S-400s to the Iranians during our negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal long ago. On paper, this was a significant capability. It sounds like in reality it is as well.

Tarapore: It absolutely is.

McFaul: Let's talk about the geopolitics. Let's just talk about the reaction. Walk us through U.S., China, Russia. How did they react to this conflict? And what are your takeaways in terms of the geopolitics of a very complicated set of bilateral relationships, especially with India, it seems to me, but with Pakistan as well.

How did the great powers react? And what do we learn about great power competition from this conflict?

Tarapore: So as you would know, as listeners would know, China is Pakistan's primary patron, great power patron. It provides Pakistan the bulk of its military capability. And in fact, this India-Pakistan clash was seen by some in some quarters as a test of Chinese military capability . . .

McFaul: Yes.

Tarapore: . . .  because the Pakistanis operate so much Chinese equipment.

Well, I think it's not a very good test of Chinese capability for many reasons. One, because the equipment itself that Pakistan operates is lower grade export variants of what China’s is. It's not integrated into a system in Pakistan in the same way as it is in China. And it's not used with the same what we would call “multi-domain doctrine” as the Chinese use.

So it's not a very good test of the Chinese equipment.

McFaul: Okay, well that's an important point, a very important point. They don't have the best stuff.

Tarapore: Yeah, that's right. They don't have the best stuff and they don't use it “properly,” quote unquote, in the same way that the Chinese do.

So, from the Indian point of view, this is a country, India, that has always been concerned about what they call the collusive two front threat: Pakistan and China ganging up on India, where if there was a crisis or a conflict with one, then India was always concerned that the other rival would opportunistically take advantage of it and open a second front.

I've always been skeptical of that. And I think what this conflict showed was what India considers to be no longer a two front dilemma, but one reinforced front. Because in this view, Pakistan was essentially, if not an appendage of China, it was nevertheless underwritten by China.

It may, according to some accounts, have benefited from real-time Chinese support during the conflict. For example, intelligence support, electronic warfare support by China, perhaps even Chinese personnel helping to advise Pakistan on how to use its weapons and how to plan and operate them. We don't know if that's true, but that's a possibility.

McFaul: Speculation, interesting That's a big step.

Tarapore: It is a big step. And so if you ask about China's approach to this, then clearly China is not neutral in this, right? China is underwriting Pakistan in this. But openly, diplomatically, it's not going to take a position and it's not going to take advantage of this sort of conflict to cause trouble on the India-China border. It's not that sort of exploitation.

Similarly, as with the U..S, there were Russian comments throughout this conflict that either proponents of an India-Russia relationship or critics of an India-Russia relationship could use instrumentally.

Some people, sometimes some Russian officials said something about India and Pakistan sort of creating this sense of equivalence that in fact they're not on our side, that they're being ambivalent. Others would say that no, in fact, Russia was more solidly behind us than any other country was.

And the same occurred with the U.S. There were U.S. officials who commented that either India is a victim of terrorism and that Pakistan is a perpetrator of terrorism, which pleased Indians, or that this conflict is none of our business, that it's something for India to handle, which they could live with.

Or, when President Trump started talking about India and Pakistan having been at war for a thousand years or whatever he said . . .

McFaul: Thousand years, he said. Yes.

Tarapore: . . . Indians rolled their eyes and were frustrated because for decades Indian officials have been trying to get Americans to internalize this idea that India is an important partner of the U.S. and that this hyphenation between India and Pakistan is an outdated idea that no longer applies.

And now here we have a President of the United States, again talking about India and Pakistan in the same breath, talking about having mediated between them, talking about having coerced both sides using the cudgel of trade deals, and promising to get the two sides to sit down and talk about Kashmir.

All of these things to anyone who doesn't follow South Asia, prima facie sound reasonable. To anyone who follows South Asia, these are all red lines and big alarm bells, especially in India, because they go against decades of American policy.

And so it was a sense of, in the extreme, a sense of betrayal. Or at a minimum, was a sense of rolling your eyes at a president who has not been well briefed.

McFaul: Who doesn't know the details. So what do you think? Was it was he just winging it, or was this really a policy change that was scripted?

Tarapore: No. So the interesting thing is, I mean, if you look at what the United States, quote unquote, deep state did—that is, the State Department, the U.S. State Department and the Secretary of State Marco Rubio—their comments were very consistent with U.S. policy over the last couple of decades. The concern is strategic stability, that these are two nuclear armed countries, we don't want conflict escalating carelessly, and that India is in fact a victim of terrorism and that, you know, there's no role for the United States to mediate a Kashmir issue.

There was none of that sort of sense, right? The State Department and the Secretary of State played a very straight bat and were consistent. It was President Trump who spoke extemporaneously about a conflict he seems to be not well-versed in, which has raised heckles.

But also, on the one hand, we can say that this is just a president speaking extemporaneously. On the other hand, he is the commander in chief of the United States.

McFaul: Exactly, yeah, right, exactly.

Tarapore: So you can't quite ignore what he says.

McFaul: Right. And just two seconds on the Russians. You gave us a little bit of it, but did they seem pleased? Obviously, they seem pleased with how their S-400s performed. Is this another – because obviously Modi has a pretty special relationship with Putin, I would say, compared to other leaders of democracies. Is this seen as a sign of closer relations between India and Russia, or is that too far?

Tarapore: I think that's going too far. I think the broader trend of India trying to wean itself off Russia remains, but it may have been set back a little bit by this. And what I mean by that is, for example, even if you take just the S-400s themselves, India bought five regiments of them and only has taken delivery of three of them.

COVID interrupted the deal, right? COVID interrupted the deliveries and then the Ukraine war interrupted the deliveries.

McFaul: Okay, I didn't know that.

Tarapore: And so the Indians are still waiting to take delivery of two regiments. And now, again, as we've said, this conflict seems to have vindicated the Indian decision to acquire S-400s. And that in fact, you know, there may be niche military capabilities that the Russians can offer India that proved to be operationally useful. So this relationship is far from a relic, right? This relationship is very much a live relationship that yields dividends for India.

McFaul: Great point. And tragically, the Russians have learned a lot about how to use drones in Ukraine. I just talking to some officials who work on European security, and they are way far ahead of where we expected them to be in terms of that. That could be an exportable technology in the future for other countries, for sure.

Tarapore: Absolutely.

McFaul: So to close out: give us your sense of what's next. What do you think happens here? Is this just a one-off or are you worried about other escalatory events?

Tarapore: An India-Pakistan crisis is never a one-off.

McFaul: That's a good point! I shouldn't laugh, but it's been there for a long long time.

Tarapore: It's been there for a long, long time. So, the sub-conventional campaign of terrorism based in Pakistan against India will continue. And as I said at the outset, what used to be hard to think of and then became a question of uncertainty has now become a certainty that India will retaliate.

Modi, after this conflict, gave a speech where he basically pledged that any future attack against India will be met with retaliation, Indian military retaliation. So it is now a matter of policy that India will retaliate against Pakistan.

McFaul: Before go on: we have not—the United States and obviously not China—we do not have enough influence vis-a-vis Pakistan to shut those terrorist camps down, right?

Tarapore: No way. This is foundational to the Pakistan army, foundational to the most powerful political actors in Pakistan.

McFaul: Got it.

Tarapore: And I think what this latest conflict shows is that India also recognizes that it is futile to try and dissuade the Pakistani military-jihadi complex from attacking India.

That used to be what they tried to do: to dissuade them, to deter them. What we've seen in 2025 is India recognizing it cannot dissuade Pakistan. It must instead impose costs upon these terrorists, and now the Pakistan army as well, so that it just makes it harder for them to attack India, so that attacks become less frequent and less provocative.

That seems to be where India is leaning. It is expecting future attacks from Pakistan And it's correct. And it will retaliate next time. That is a highly probable eventuality.

The question for me is, okay, so we now expect this sort of conflict to recur. The question is, what does it mean for India's overall defense posture, including what lessons does India learn for deterring conflict with China on the land border. And what does it mean for India's ability to project power into the Indian Ocean region? This is a country that faces challenges, security challenges on all sides.

And every time one of these fronts becomes active and it seizes the attention of decision makers in Delhi, the concern is that India will react to it and it will over learn the lessons of the last crisis and it will come at the expense of other priorities elsewhere.

So that'll be the thing that I watch. To what extent does this cast a shadow over Indian security planning for the months and years ahead?

McFaul: Wow, it sounds super scary. It sounds like Clinton was right, what he said back then. And when you add, as you did, we're talking about two nuclear powers. Obviously, China is a nuclear power.

Tarapore: Three!

McFaul: Three. This is frightening part of the world. That's why we're grateful, Arzan, to have you on World Class! We're grateful to have you at FSI and at Stanford, because we’ve got to be following this issue. So thanks for joining World Class today.

Tarapore: Absolutely my pleasure. Thanks Mike, for bringing some attention to this issue.

McFaul: You've been listening to World Class from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review and be sure to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to stay up to date on what's happening in the world, and why.

When Stanford sociologist Gi-Wook Shin left his home country of South Korea in 1983 to pursue graduate studies at the University of Washington, he was certain he would return to Korea upon graduation. More than 40 years later, Shin, the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, is still in the United States. 

Yet he does not consider himself a case of brain drain for Korea. Shin, who is also the founding director of the Korea Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and APARC director, has continuously contributed to Korea by leading transnational collaborations, researching and publishing on pressing issues in Korean affairs, and otherwise engaging in diverse intellectual exchanges with the country.

Shin’s experiences sparked his interest in the sociological patterns of mobile talent and a central question: How do countries attract, develop, and retain talent in a globalized world? His new book, The Four Talent Giants (Stanford University Press, 2025), explores that question regarding transnational talent flows from a comparative lens by examining how four strikingly different Asia-Pacific nations – Japan, Australia, China, and India – have become economic powerhouses.

We interviewed Shin about his book – watch:

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The book’s main idea, Shin explains, is that how countries manage talent is key to their strength and future success. He calls the four Asia-Pacific nations the book examines “talent giants” because each has used a distinct talent strategy that has proven critical to national development. Three of these nations – China, Japan, and India – are among the top five economies in the world in terms of GDP, and Australia, despite its relatively small population size, is third in terms of wealth per adult.

In The Four Talent Giants, Shin investigates how these four nations have become global powers and sustained momentum by responding to risks and challenges, such as demographic crises, brain drain, and geopolitical tensions, and what lessons their developmental paths hold for other countries.

A New Framework for Studying Human Resource Development 

Asia’s robust economic growth over the past forty years is nothing short of a remarkable feat. The Asia-Pacific today continues to be the world's fastest-growing region, despite global economic uncertainty. How did this phenomenal ascendance come about?

The existing literature has emphasized common “recipes” of success among Asia-Pacific powers. Endeavoring to find one-size-fits-all formulas that could be replicated in other countries seeking rapid development, it has overlooked the distinct developmental journeys of Asian nations. “We need a new lens, or framework, to explain their successes, while also accounting for cross-national variation in development and sustainability,” writes Shin. 

In his book, Shin examines talent – the skilled occupations essential to a nation’s economy – as a key driver of economic development. While all countries rely on human resources for development, their talent strategies vary based on historical, cultural, and institutional factors. Shin introduces a new framework, talent portfolio theory (TPT), inspired by financial portfolio theory, to analyze and compare these national approaches.

“TPT views a nation’s talent development, like financial investment, as constructing a ‘talent portfolio’ that mixes multiple forms of talent – domestic, foreign, and diasporic – adjusting its portfolio over time to meet new risks and challenges,” he explains. Just as an investor may select different financial products in a mix of assets, countries can create talent portfolios by picking from various strategies.

Shin identifies four main strategies by which a country can harness talent – what he calls the four B's: 

• “Brain train” signifies efforts to develop and expand a country’s domestic talent or human capital.
• “Brain gain” refers to attracting foreign talent to strengthen the domestic workforce.
• “Brain circulation” involves bringing back nationals who have gone abroad for work or study.
• “Brain linkage” means leveraging the global networks and expertise of citizens living overseas through transnational collaboration.

Shin uses TPT as an analytical framework to examine how each of the four talent giants has constructed its distinct national talent portfolio and how this portfolio has evolved. As in an investment portfolio rebalancing, a nation can maintain diversification across the four B's and within each B. TPT therefore offers a holistic framework for understanding the overall picture of a country’s talent strategy, and how and why it may “rebalance” its talent portfolio.

Throughout the book, Shin shows that, while Japan has relied on the brain train strategy, Australia, whose population was too small for such an approach, emphasized brain gain. China used brain circulation: it first sent students and professionals abroad to learn, then implemented policies to encourage them to return. India, by contrast, established linkages among its diaspora and used them to develop its economy.

New Geopolitics of Global Talent: Lessons and Policy Implications

The case studies of the four talent giants reveal that there is no single path to talent-driven development. Each of the four Asia-Pacific countries has built its unique talent portfolio, balancing human and social capital, homegrown and foreign-educated individuals, and domestic and diasporic talents. While the talent giants use all four B's to some extent, each emphasizes them differently, reflecting diverse strategies and development paths. The core findings of these studies offer valuable insights for countries aiming to design effective talent policies. 

The four B's were instrumental in the economic rise of the four Asian nations, and they will be equally critical in addressing new challenges facing all economies, from demographic crises to emergent geopolitical tensions. For the United States, one such challenge is its sprawling competition with China, where the battle for talent is heating up in the race for technological supremacy.

Shin warns that the advantage the United States has long held in technological innovation, driven by its ability to attract skilled foreign talent, is now at risk from the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies, pressures on universities, and cuts to research funding. “Immigrants have not just filled jobs,” he emphasizes. “They have created new industries and helped the US and their home countries. If the US makes it harder for talent to come in and stay, it risks hurting its long-term success.”

The Four Talent Giants is an outcome of Shin’s longstanding project investigating Talent Flows and Development, now one of the research tracks he leads at the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL), which he launched in 2022. Housed at APARC, the lab is an interdisciplinary research initiative addressing Asia’s social, cultural, economic, and political challenges through comparative, policy-relevant studies. SNAPL’s education mission is to cultivate the next generation of researchers and policy leaders by offering mentorships and fellowship opportunities for students and emerging scholars.

Shin notes that the SNAPL team illustrates all four B’s in his talent portfolio theory, as some members are U.S.-born and trained, some come from Asia and, after working at the lab, return to their home countries, whereas some stay here, promoting linkages with their home countries. “In many ways, this project shows what is possible when we invest in talent and encourage international collaboration.”

In the Media

Stanford Scholar Reveals How Talent Development Strategies Shape National Futures
The Korean Daily, July 13, 2025 (interview)
- English version
- Korean version

Jessie Kong: Every year, SJEC puts on a week-long, entirely student-run, exchange program for 20-25 visiting Japanese students from Keio, Doshisha, and Kyoto Universities. Through this programming, we strive to provide authentic insights into Stanford academics, extracurriculars, and lifestyle by having the Japanese students join our lives and develop bonding experiences. 

As one of the co-presidents of SJEC this year, my work has centered around coordinating the entire team of Stanford officers, delegating tasks between teams, communicating with and preparing the Japanese students, and facilitating activities during the conference.

Through leading SJEC this year, I have realized the importance of dedication and commitment when planning these activities. My previous years in SJEC leading the social team has also shown me how to plan events from start to finish in an efficient way that leverages the capabilities of everyone on the team while focusing on the experience for the Japanese students. I think being able to put the group's interest above my own was also a good skill I learned while in the co-president position.

Socially, I have been able to build connections both for myself and other Stanford students with the Japanese student community. Starting with SJEC, I was able to meet and take care of visiting Japanese students at Stanford, and this effort was reciprocated when I went to study abroad through the BOSP Kyoto program. Being able to feel the reciprocity of my efforts in SJEC only makes me more motivated to continue working in SJEC to create a good experience for more Japanese students who visit in the future.
 

Yifei Cheng: The main event from our organization this year is the FACES annual summit that took place in January 2025. We invited 40 college students from Chinese and American universities to engage in dialogue about US-China relations on Stanford campus. As the president of FACES, I was involved in candidate selection and planning the summit schedule. I also took the initiative to organize the summit field trip at the Angel Island Immigration Facility. 

Through the lecture of Professor Gordon H. Chang on the persecution of Chinese scientists during the McCarthy Era, I learned about the repeated interlocks between politics and academia in the US, which has significant contemporary repercussions with the current administration's restrictions of student visas and immigration process. 

The FACES summit also enhanced my understanding of diplomacy on a personal level. This experience taught me that cultural exchange isn’t about reaching agreement—it’s about creating a shared space where different truths can coexist. I learned to listen across differences, become comfortable with discomfort, and see the value in ambiguity. These lessons have reshaped how I engage in conversations not only about geopolitics, but also about identity, equity, and belonging more broadly.

I gained concrete organizational skills with managing timelines, delegating tasks, and staying calm when things went wrong—like when the hotel rooming list gets wrong and messy. I also learned that leadership is less about control and more about creating the conditions for others to grow. I facilitated the daily reflection session during the summit. As the discussion facilitator, I found it rewarding to moderate discussions where sometimes disagreements arise. I think this is a valuable skill for my academic and professional development. 
 

Aimen Ejaz and Luv Jawahrani: This year, in its inaugural term, the Stanford Indo-Pak Dosti Forum (SIPDF)achieved what many said was impossible: bringing together Indians and Pakistanis in the same room – voluntarily – twice a week.

In the fall, we launched INTNL REL 47SI: Bridging the Divide, a student-initiated course focused on the political and economic dimensions of India-Pakistan relations. The class brought together prominent individuals concerned about peace-building, ranging from former Indian and Pakistani ambassadors who’d been involved in negotiating peace to professors from the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), to research fellows at the Hoover Institute and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), and veteran journalists who have covered the subcontinent for decades.

In spring, we co-taught GLOBAL 47SI: Building Bridges—a course that spotlights cross-border entrepreneurship as a tool for soft diplomacy. We invited legendary South Asian entrepreneurs and venture capitalists from both sides of the border: Mamoon Hamid (Managing Director at Kleiner Perkins), Samir Kaul (Managing Director at Khosla Ventures), Amit Patel (Managing Director at Owl Ventures), Bilal Zuberi (Partner at Lux Capital), and Anand Swaminathan (Senior Partner at McKinsey), among others. The goal? To explore how venture-building, innovation, and chai-fueled resilience can outpace political gridlock.

Academically, co-leading our student-led initiative taught us more than any textbook ever could, mostly because we had to build the syllabus ourselves. And we didn’t just co-lead — we co-dreamed and co-hustled, getting the syllabi approved by multiple departments and cold-emailing, even chasing down, speakers from across the U.S.

In designing INTNL REL 47SI: Bridging the Divide, we dove headfirst into the complexities of India-Pakistan political and economic relations. But we didn’t stop at reading IR theory. We debated it with the very diplomats and policymakers who once shaped those theories in real time. Every week became a crash course in postcolonial statecraft, regional security, and the surprisingly human side of high diplomacy.

Then came GLOBAL 47SI: Building Bridges, where we shifted from conflict to collaboration, exploring how entrepreneurship can serve as a tool of soft power. Through case studies, guest lectures, and our own classroom debates, we began asking whether a startup pitch can accomplish  what politicians can't. What happens when innovation moves faster than diplomacy? And what does it mean when the biggest South Asian venture capitalist in the world funds a startup founded by someone from the "other" side?

More than anything, we learned how to turn theory into action. Whether it was teaching concepts like diaspora diplomacy or moderating discussions between venture capitalists and undergrads, we were constantly translating complex ideas into real-world conversations. We didn’t just learn. We taught, we built, and we questioned everything along the way.

Culturally and socially, our student-led initiative felt less like organizing a class and more like hosting weekly peace talks, with chai and biryani. We came in thinking we were building a curriculum; we ended up navigating generations of silence, suspicion, and identity.

We learned that Partition isn’t just a historical event–it’s a living memory passed down through stories and subconscious hesitation. It’s in the way some students avoid eye contact when the topic turns political, or how others lower their voices when mentioning where their family is really from. But we also learned that these barriers can soften when people feel safe enough to speak, and laugh, together.

We watched students from India and Pakistan, often meeting for the first time, begin to open up. Conversations that started stiffly turned into long debates, jokes, shared Desi Spotify playlists, and sometimes even plans to visit each other’s cities, if our countries ever allow it. We learned that vulnerability—especially in a region taught to fear it—is a radical act. And that our generation is more ready than we think to rewrite the script we inherited.

There were moments when we questioned whether this initiative was worth it. When we received backlash online for platforming certain voices. When a class discussion got tense and uncomfortable. When friends warned us that this was “too political,” “too idealistic,” “too risky.” And we didn’t always have the perfect response.

But leadership, we realized, isn’t about always being right. It’s about being rooted in a vision that peace isn’t naïve — it’s necessary. That bridging divides isn’t weakness—it’s the only strength that can outlast hate. And when things fell apart — when a high-profile speaker pulled out at the last minute, or a student pushed back hard in class — we didn’t pivot away from our mission. We dug deeper. We turned cancellations into teachable moments. We turned criticism into conversation. Most importantly, we learned to trust ourselves and to trust that our generation doesn’t have to inherit the silence, the suspicion, and the separation.