BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK What Vietnam Can Teach Us About The Vulnerabilities Of Banks Key Takeaway: Vietnam’s businesswoman Truong My Lan was sentenced to death for taking out $44 billion in fraudulent loans from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) by bypassing a law that prevents anyone from owning more than 5% of a bank’s shares. The loans made up 93% of the bank’s entire lending portfolio. The case highlights the […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PSYCHOLOGY The Psychology Of Fyre Festival II Key Takeaway: The founder of the 2017 Fyre Festival, William “Billy” McFarland, has announced plans for a second attempt at the festival, with a target date of the end of 2024. McFarland, who was charged with several fraud offences and sentenced to six years in prison, has been promoting the event on Instagram. The promotion […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK POLITICS TECHNOLOGY How Should We Regulate A.I.? Key Takeaway: Regulation is needed to ensure that AI products deserve trust and don’t lead to fraud and misinformation, as human imagination is out of proportion. AI poses a unique challenge because designers cannot predict how it will behave, making it difficult to regulate. Professional organizations can play a role in regulating AI by combining […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY TECHNOLOGY How Will ChatGPT Transform Philosophy Key Takeaway: In 1950 English mathematician Alan Turing proposed an “imitation game” where a judge entered into a typed dialogue with an AI pretending to be human as a way of testing if the AI was intelligent. Lex.page is an AI-enabled writing tool that can generate text or answer questions. In 2018, Google unveiled Duplex, […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY The Hidden Structure Of Community Dynamics Key Takeaways: The world is a networked place, literally and figuratively. For example, the network consisting of the international financial corruption scheme uncovered by the Panama Papers investigation has an unusual lack of connections among its parts. The concept is so simple that it can be drawn on paper: Entities of interest – people, businesses, […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY How Many Bots Are On Twitter? Key Takeaways: Twitter reports that fewer than 5% of accounts are fakes or spammers, commonly referred to as “bots.” Bots, on the other hand, are accounts controlled in part by software; they may post content or carry out simple interactions, like retweeting, automatically. Malicious bots are used to spread misinformation, inflate popularity, exacerbate conflict through […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY 5 Ways Big Data Is Changing The World The primitive era had land — rich wilderness upon which the first civilizations were built. The industrial era had giant steel machines capable of carrying humans across the globe to expand our influence. And what about this age? What will we use to change the world? The answer, of course, is data. Information made of […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
ART & DESIGN EDITOR'S PICK FINANCE TECHNOLOGY NFTs: An Overblown Speculative Bubble? Key Takeaways: While publicity given to the rapper’s purchase certainly seems to have boosted demand, the average price paid for Bored Ape NFTs so far in 2022 is about 83 Ether (currently about US$280,000). With prices disconnected from any future cash flows, there is less interest in forecasts from technical experts. A lot like Ponzi […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK FINANCE TECHNOLOGY The 2 Things Needed For Crypto To Truly Change The World What do we need for crypto to really hit the big time? What does it take for crypto to turn into something nobody can live without, something invisible and universal that everyone just uses and nobody even thinks about anymore? All technological revolutions follow the same patterns. Over time, we go from a few smart […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK FINANCE Understanding SPACS: Bubbles Of Uncertainty SPAC named as Special Purpose Acquisition Companies was developed to avoid the old lengthy and costly way of moving with a traditional IPO process. But now it is getting misused to bring up incompetent companies to go public which do not have the necessary requirements to become public under any circumstances. The goal is to […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Real Art Of War Key Takeaway: The Art of War, an ancient Chinese war manual from the 5th century BCE, is often cited as a cliché by teen edgelords and management gurus. However, the book is actually a work of clear-sighted and sometimes ruthless realism, influenced by philosophy and strategy. The book, which is attributed to Chinese general and […] Written by Jamie Roberts July 18, 2024July 18, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Democracy Of Bees Key Takeaway: Honey bees, originally tropical insects, evolved complex nest-choosing patterns 600,000 years ago to survive cold climates. However, research into honey bee pressures and behavior rarely takes into account these nest preferences. Researchers have found that tree nests lose less heat than conventional hives and that features of man-made hives inserted for convenience increase […] Written by Derek Mitchell July 17, 2024July 17, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Is Fusion Power Our Future? Key Takeaway: Nuclear fusion could be a promising solution to climate change and energy security issues, as it offers a clean, abundant, and safe energy source. However, the technology’s realisation may come into tension with the issues it aims to solve. The technology’s appeal may mask deeper ethical questions, such as environmental sustainability and the […] Written by Sophie Cogan July 11, 2024July 11, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How People Can Influence Our Memories Key Takeaway: A study has found that our memory helps us learn from experiences and develop new knowledge by integrating and updating information. Memory can forge inferred connections beyond direct experiences, which can sometimes lead to false inferences. The study found that people may prioritize information from liked sources more than those from disliked ones, […] Written by Ines Bramao July 10, 2024July 10, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How Does Space Change Astronaut Biology? Key Takeaway: Astronauts are experiencing a new era of human spaceflight, with longer missions ranging from minutes to months. As humanity looks to return to the Moon over the coming decade, space exploration missions will be longer, with more space travelers and tourists. Researchers in space health are seeking to better understand the human health […] Written by Susan Bailey July 9, 2024July 12, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Who Really Was Mona Lisa? Key Takeaway: The Mona Lisa, a Renaissance icon, has been a subject of debate for over half a millennium. The painting has been traditionally associated with Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. However, another theory suggests Isabella of Aragon, a princess deeply entwined in the political and cultural fabric of […] Written by Darius von Guttner Sporzynski July 5, 2024July 5, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Science Fiction Feedback Loop Key Takeaway: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sparked controversy by referencing the 2013 movie “Her” to highlight the novelty of ChatGPT’s latest iteration. Actor Scarlett Johansson accused the company of improperly using her voice after she spurned their offer to make her the voice of ChatGPT’s new virtual assistant. This highlights the “sci-fi feedback loop,” which […] Written by Rizwan Virk July 4, 2024July 4, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Rethinking Education Key Takeaways: The Industrial model of education that fueled the modern era and its dizzying reach did its job incredibly well. In his writing, Flynn illustrates study after study, spanning nations and decades, in which modern educational gift of abstraction — a transcendent sign of intelligence, as we saw in Raven’s Matrices — has been […] Written by Anthony Fieldman March 2, 2022October 19, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How China Is Transforming Its Economy Through Learning I highly recommend reading the McKinsey Global Institute’s new report, “Reskilling China: Transforming The World’s Largest Workforce Into Lifelong Learners”, which focuses on the country’s biggest employment challenge, re-training its workforce and the adoption of practices such as lifelong learning to address the growing digital transformation of its productive fabric. How to transform the country […] Written by Enrique Dans February 1, 2021February 1, 2021 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Why You’re Not Seeing Success With Influencer Marketing With the new year around the corner, now is a good time to re-evaluate your past marketing strategies and gear up for the year ahead. For some businesses, influencer marketing has simply not seemed to live up to its lofty promises of genuine engagement, credibility, and transparency. Some have claimed that it has been failing […] Written by Michael Tan January 14, 2021January 15, 2021 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
A New Philosophy of Business I’m about to ask you to take a mental leap. For the next 8 minutes, suspend your notions of what a business is, and I’ll propose a new lens for you to look through. There are a lot of questions asked around what “community” means for business. “Where should community fit in my organization?” and […] Written by Empirics Asia September 5, 2018September 5, 2018 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked