Have you experienced a shortage of particular foods in the grocery store or been waiting ages for that car you ordered at Christmas last year? Well, it’s been a year of spectacular woes in all things supply chain, impacting consumers, manufacturers, and transporters. Let’s look at the highlights: Suez Canal blockage In March, a 400-meter cargo ship called Ever Given wedged itself in the Suez Canal for nearly a week due to high winds and poor visibility. The Suez canal blockage resulted in sig
AI had a memorable 2021, although not always for the best reasons. The field unleashed an arousing blend of breakthroughs, applications, and ideas — but also discharged a steady stream of bigotry, BS, and big tech barbarity. At Neural, we aspire to be like Fox News in its prime: fair and balanced. In this equitable spirit, we’ve compiled an even mix of AI’s best and worst of 2021. Without further ado, here are five stories that made us cherish our robot overlords — and five that had us reaching
Nine out of ten organizations will be combining remote and on-site working in the post-pandemic future of work. That’s what the latest McKinsey research says. This new model will dramatically change the way we function and the way we meet. Getting meetings right will be imperative for any business leader — whether they run a startup or big corporation — to create an inclusive and productive environment where people can thrive. Here are five tested meeting design tactics that have worked for me a
The recent launch of the James Webb space telescope has the science world abuzz with dreams of cosmic breakthroughs in our understanding of the universe. Scientists hope it’ll help us gaze back in time to the universe’s origin, explain the mysteries of dark matter, and find definitive proof of ET. Each of those results would be among the greatest scientific accomplishments in human history. But the aliens one might have the biggest immediate impact on civilization. For that very reason, a team o
The People’s Republic of China recently published a “position paper” detailing the nation’s views on military AI regulation. Having thoroughly perused it, we’ve come to the following conclusion: it’s gibberish. Up front: The first thing you want to know when a global superpower releases official government documentation detailing its views on the use of artificial intelligence for military applications is whether the signatory intends to develop lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS). China’s
Artificial intelligence has entered all our lives, but few people have embraced it as firmly as I. Over the past year, I’ve tried to embed AI into every aspect of my futile existence. I envisioned creating a cyborg in a real-life sci-fi story, in which I’d play the parts of both Frankenstein and his monster. And if that didn’t work out, surely the algorithms would be adequate replacements for my useless brain. Right? Friends, lovers, and nemeses: this was my year with AI. The belly of the beast
The James Webb space telescope was successfully launched over the weekend. The $10B honeycomb array, which will serve as the spiritual successor to Hubble, is now on its way to Lagrange point two. There, it’ll sit in orbit a million miles away from the planet it was built on. ✅ Milestone achieved. @NASAWebb is safely in space, powered on, and communicating with ground controllers. The space telescope is now on its way to #UnfoldTheUniverse at its final destination one million miles (1.5 million
It was my first time pitching a VC investor. I had settled on the couch of my living room, ready for a video call with someone I had never met in person. I had a business idea and a team to pull it off. He had the money and interest in early-stage startups. Fingers crossed it’s a match! The call was short and to the point. We spoke about my idea, the team behind it, and why we needed the money. Half an hour later, a $100k investment landed in our bank account. How did that happen? First of all,&
The universe started with a Big Bang. Everything that was ever going to be anything was compacted into a tiny ball of whatever-ness and then it exploded outward and the universe begin expanding. At least, that’s one way of looking at it. But emergent new theories and ages-old philosophical assertions are beginning to find a foothold in cutting-edge quantum physics research. And it’s beginning to look more and more like we might actually be the center of the universe after all. That’s not to say
A team of theoretical physicists working with Microsoft today published an amazing pre-print research paper describing the universe as a self-learning system of evolutionary laws. In other words: We live inside a computer that learns. The big idea: Bostrom’s Simulation Argument has been a hot topic in science circles lately. We published “What if you’re living in a simulation, but there’s no computer” recently to posit a different theory, but Microsoft’s pulled a cosmic “hold my beer” with this