đ We commemorate International Womenâs Day with a sense of gratitude and fortitude, the former for how far weâve come, the latter for how much we still have to work on. Beyond that, amidst the ongoing war in Russia and Ukraine, we want to think about what world we would want to live in? As technology and business practitioners, we have a duty to harness our gifts and talents to make an impact beyond our work towards a better world.
On the news front, we have the inconvenient rise of military AI applications; a Tortoise going the last mile, and the podcast wars heating up.
Welcome More Women to Expert Circle!
Last week, we had a little bit of fun by spotlighting the first five men who joined the Expert Circle. As we are excited about bringing clarity and accessibility towards the most important developments in their disciplines and industries, we are even more excited about the inclusive network we are building. Weâre excited to announce the four amazing women have joined our first-ever Expert Circle!
Now, The women-men-ratio is still not at parity (just a reflection of how far weâve come and how much we still have to work on). đ We purposely announced our women Experts separately to spotlight how we still need more women representation, and that we need to act more to #BreakTheBias.
We think having more women being featured, represented in a highly inclusive network so their ideas can be celebrated, energy can be fueled, and friendship can be built. So, help us by nominating!
Analytics, Digital, Design In Action
AI Warfare
No, weâre not thinking of Terminator, but weapons thatâre more mundane, insidious, and these technologies have been on the frontlines.
Ukraine has been using autonomous Turkish-made TB2 drones to drop laser-guided bombs and artillery strikes. Russiaâs âLantsetâ drone, which the country reportedly used in Syria, has similar capabilities, enabling it to navigate and crash into preselected targets.Â
Civil society groups and AI researchers have been increasingly alarmed in recent years about the advent of lethal autonomous weapons systems: AI-enabled weapons with the ability to select targets and kill people without human oversight. This has led to a concerted effort by the United Nations to try to ban or at least restrict the use of such systems. But those talks have so far not resulted in much progress.
Meanwhile, social media has been weaponized, combining fake coverage from video games or posts from troll farms to deceive, or even worse, incite anger from unsuspecting users.Â
We can only hope that Kai-Fu Leeâs prediction that AI would be the next revolution in warfare is wrong.
The Tortoise Wins the Race
Robot company Tortoise introduced Mobile Smart Stores, vending-machine containers with tap-to-pay checkout carried by its bots.
Tortoise isnât selling staples, but rather premium SKUs like a $35 pastry box, or even a $300 pair of headphones. Tortoiseâs vehicles are best for deliveries that are no more than three miles from the store, and it can also handle five-mile deliveries in a pinch. If a retailer does at least three deliveries of this length per day, they could easily pay back the cost of the monthly lease.
The beauty of Tortoiseâs business model is that itâs flexible enough to serve multiple different use cases, from urban to exurban, last-mile to middle-mile delivery. This strategic difference distinguishes Tortoise from the raft of last-mile companies that havenât been faring well recently.
Podcast Wars
YouTube is reportedly offering money to podcasters in a bid to get them to create video versions of their shows, echoing Spotifyâs pivotal moves lately.
YouTube has been making small advances towards pleasing listeners on the platform. In October, it began allowing all Canadian users to listen to audio without having the app open, previously only available to YouTube Premium subscribers. Around the same time, YouTube also hired Kai Chuk to lead the companyâs podcasting efforts.
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