THE CLOUD, THE ROBOT REVOLUTION, AND MACHINES THAT THINK

Global Interdependence Center CONFERENCE ……….. The putative title of my talk is “The Technology of Money” because most of this conference so far has been about crypto, but I don’t want to talk about the machines that facilitate finance – that facilitate transactions – that can trade wealth.

The Other Things Fueling Inflation

CITY JOURNAL ………….The financial sector is still roiling from the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. At the epicenter of factors triggering the collapse is the Federal Reserve’s strategy of hiking interest rates. This would be a good time to ask: How else might we tamp down inflation?

Real Robots in Our Near Future: The Rise of Capable Industrial Automatons

DAKOTA DIGITAL REVIEW ……….. We know that even as economies increasingly digitalize and become ever more service- and software- centric, demand will still increase for the kinds of things that are produced by the “hard” industries. That reality was made clear during the disruptive lockdowns. Miners are needed to access minerals to supply the manufacturers…

Yes, This Time It’s Different: ChatGPT

CITY JOURNAL ……….More than 1 million users signed up within a week of the online release of the artificial intelligence (AI) tool ChatGPT on November 30, 2022, a date dystopians think will live in infamy. In just two months, 100 million users signed up, a record for any new software, app, or online tool. ChatGPT—along…

‘Cobalt Red’ Review: The Human Price of Cobalt

WALL STREET JOURNAL ………..If you want to know what’s being unleashed by the rush to mandate electric cars for a so-called clean-energy transition, read “Cobalt Red.” It will leave you almost as shaken as its author, Siddharth Kara, who braved lawless militia and state-backed soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo as he visited the…

Book Review: Julio Ottino & Bruce Mau’s ‘The Nexus’

REAL CLEAR MARKETS ……….. Innovation is the sine qua non of our time. Corporate executives claim their business embodies it, whether it’s about computers or coffee. Politicians love to invoke it. Consultants claim they can imbue it, for a price. Venture capitalists chase it, sometimes blindly. Educators claim to teach it. Coders think artificial intelligence can fake it.