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February 11, 2018

From The Economist:
Self-driving cars are just one example of how technology firms’ AI strategies are pushing beyond the virtual world of software into hardware. Many companies, including Alphabet, Apple and Microsoft, are also investing to build specialised, powerful “AI chips” that can power their various activities. These will compete with those made by NVIDIA, a tech firm that has built an empire on powerful chips used in various AI realms, such as autonomous cars and virtual reality.

From The Economist:
It seems likely that the incumbent tech groups will capture many of AI’s gains, given their wealth of data, computing power, smart algorithms and human talent, not to mention a head start on investing. History points to the likelihood of concentration; both databases and personal computers ushered in ascendancies, if only for a while, of a tiny group of tech firms (Oracle and IBM in databases, Microsoft and Apple in personal computers).

From The Economist:
By the metrics that count—talent, computing power and data—Google appears to be in the lead in AI. It can afford the cleverest people and has such a variety of projects, from drones to cars to smart software, that people interested in machine learning rarely leave. Other firms had to learn to take AI seriously, but Google’s founders were early devotees of machine learning and always saw it as a competitive edge.

From Harper's:
A negotiation experiment at the Wharton School of Business found that male participants became more aggressive and less chivalrous toward women following the election of Donald Trump.

From Harper's:
A study of pigtail macaques indicates that it takes very little to impose a new regime on a primate society.
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