Robots Will Take Our Jobs, But It's Hard To Say When - Quartz

7/22/13
Robots will take our jobs, but its hard to say when - Quartz
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SCIENCE FICTION
Robots will take our jobs, but its hard to say Twitter @qz when
http://qz.com or follow on By Luke Muehlhauser May 19, 2013 Luke Muehlhauser is the executive director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. He writes about artificial intelligence, metaethics, and cognitive science.
The robot revolution deserves careful analysis, not excited hype Getty Images/Oli Scarff
Economists and management experts have begun to model what might happen when robots are smart enough to do our jobs for us. Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee argue in their book Race Against the Machine that yes, robots are taking some jobs now, and will take more jobs soon. Nobel laureate Paul Krugman says the rise of the robots will diminish the value of skills and education relative to capital. Economist Karl Smith claims the transition to robot labor will be more transformative than the Industrial Revolution. Why worry about this issue now? A commonly cited reason is that a couple more decades of exponential increases in computing power (dubbed Moores Law) will give us the computational power of the human brain. Hence, the robot revolution is just around the corner. The trouble with this argument is that, as economist Robin Hanson reminds us, artificial intelligence takes software, not just hardware. Weve had the computing power of a honeybees brain for quite a while now, but that doesnt mean we know how to build tiny
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robots that fend for themselves outside the lab, find their own sources of energy, and communicate with others to build their homes in the wild. Purveyors of the Moores law hence AI argument know this, but they downplay its significance. In a recent article for Mother Jones, Kevin Drum spends at least 10 paragraphs and one very nice animated graphicon Moores Law, but crams four different caveats for his argument into a single paragraph, with just one sentence devoted to the caveat about software difficulty. He concludes: True artificial intelligence will very likely be here within a couple of decades. Not so fast. Forecasting AI is more complicated than that. Artificial-intelligence software progress might slow down as it has for many AI subtasks already, or we might see breakthroughs that improve the efficiency of particular methods by 20 orders of magnitude. As AI draws near, governments might regulate AI development to avoid mass unemployment. Alternatively, an AI Sputnik moment that publicly demonstrates the real possibility of AI could spur an AI race between world powers. Moores law might come to an end, or quantum computing could take flight. It is wise to examine how AI technologies might develop, and how we might ensure they have a positive impact. (I run a research institute devoted entirely to this important problem.) But as we draw up our plans for navigating the future of AI, let us not pretend to know more than we do.
We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

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A Smart Approach to Landings
Building a Better GPS
Arrest in Glaxos China bribery scandal unnerves foreign consultants

By Heather Timmons July 22, 2013
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Imaginechina/Weng Lei
Before he was detained by police in Shanghai on July 10 in connection with the GlaxoSmithKline bribery investigation, Peter Humphrey warned of the treacherous business environment for foreign firms trying to navigate Chinas opaque business climate. There is one industry that is booming in China like everything else but doesnt often get written about its called fraud, wrote Humphrey, a British consultant, former journalist and past president of the Rotary Club of Beijing, in a 2008 magazine published by the British Chamber of Commerce. It can be in your supply chain, among vendors, distributors, employees and joint venture partners. Or it can be among the people who you use to transact an acquisition or a new partnership or a securities deal, he added. Humphreys company, ChinaWhys, bills itself as international business advisors with eyes in China, walking multinationals through the labyrinth of opportunity, risk and unfamiliar cultural environment. But now he has become the first foreign businessman detained in a widening bribery scandal. It is not clear how Humphrey figures into the investigation of an alleged scheme to funnel millions of dollars in illicit payments to doctors, hospitals and government officials. GSK which admitted on Monday that senior executives of the drug company acted outside of our processes and controls which breaches Chinese lawacknowledged to the Financial Times that Humphrey had done work for the company, but he has not been named by British embassy in Beijing or the Chinese government. Nevertheless, Humphreys detention has frayed the nerves of a fast-growing contingent of influential foreigners in Chinathe thousands of consultants who act as middlemen for businesses trying to do business in mainland China. When I started in Hong Kong in the early nineties, you had people who were China consultants, and whatever you wanted do in China, they could help you do it, said Jeremy Gordon, the founder of China Business Services. Now, China has become such an important part of the economy, and everyone needs to be there, so you have specialized people to do specific things. If youre a foreign company that wants to do business in China, theres a consultant (often headed by a foreign-born man or woman) to help you figure out how to do it, whether its manufacturing ice cream, or entering the film industry, or in the case of Humphrey, examining your business or partners for fraud. These consultants can be ex-journalistsHumphrey spent two decades with Reutersor they can be former corporate managers or foreign government employees who have spent many years in China. Sometimes theyre employed by global law or advisory firm like Deloitte or IBM, but theres also a sea of self-employed consultants, like Humphrey.
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Humphrey has been detained for nearly two weeks with little outcry from any business community, highlighting the impotent nature of the foreign-born China consultant if things go wrong. David Wolf, a communications adviser who does work in China, tweeted that the detention scared the living daylights out of me, adding later:
David Wolf
@WolfmanChina
Follow
I've known Peter Humphrey since 1999. High integrity. Holding him incommunicado is Gestapo/KGB/Kempei-tai tactics.
2:31 AM - 22 Jul 2013 3 RETWEETS
A host of China consultants, normally a chatty group (because building a reputation as an expert is an important part of their business) contacted for this story declined to speak on the record, citing the sensitive nature of the situation, though on background they called him highly-regarded, plugged-in and well-respected. But Humphreys plight shows that when youre an independent consultant in China, youre really on your ownno matter how plugged in you might be.
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WWJMKD?
The latest sign that Europes plan to cut debt by cutting spending just isnt working
By Matt Phillips @MatthewPhillips 2 hours ago
JohnMaynardKeynestoldusthiswouldhappenalmost80yearsago.HiswifeLydiaisshockedwedidnt
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listen. APPhoto
Well say it again. If the goal of todays European powers is to reduce the debt loads of the troubled countries that set off the European debt crisis over the last three years, it just isnt working. The latest official quarterly debt-to-GDP numbers couldnt be any clearer. Italys debt-to-GDP ratio hit 130% during the first quarter of 2013, a new record. Irelands continued to escalate, touching 125% at the end of March. Greece remains a basket case. Even after having defaulted on its debt twice over the last few yearswhich sharply cut the debt outstandingit posted the highest overall debt-to-GDP ratio, 160%. But it also posted the highest quarter-over-quarter rise in the measure. Look for yourself.
The situation in Europe is an example of what British economist John Maynard Keynes called the paradox of thrift. While it is considered prudent for heavily indebted individuals and families to cut down on spending, the same process isnt always wise for entire economies. Thats because unlike with an individual or family, in an economy spending on consumption and investment is needed to spur growth. One persons spending becomes another persons income. And if everyone tries to cut spending and boost savings at once, it means that the economy as a whole slows. The result is lower tax revenues, higher spending on social welfare programs, and zero progress on cutting debt. Also, steep budget cuts can lead to hardship and sufferingand social unrest. Austerity at all costs in Europe has led unemployment in Spain and Greece to top 25%. Keynes would be shaking his head.
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Where eciency is discovered

July 15, 2013
For aeronautical engineers, an efficient blueprint doesnt guarantee an efficient aircraft. You have to actually put the plane in the sky to determine the real savings. Thats the principal understanding that inspired Boeings ecoDemonstrator program, which integrates innovative features into dedicated test planes for continuous testing and tweaking. Of particular interest to the program are materials, technologies, and even flight patterns that are more fuel efficient, quieter, cleaner, and more sustainable. And these were the elements built into the 2012 ecoDemonstrator, a Next-Generation Boeing 737-800 on loan from American Airlines, which features variable area fan nozzles, active engine vibration reduction, and a regenerative fuel cell.
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American Airlines is one of a handful of industry standouts to express a sincere interest in the program. After all, the savings reaped from refined efficiency are passed directly onto the carriers and could significantly improve their bottom line, as fuel is every carriers leading expenditure. Beyond financial savings, it is also in line with American Airlines mission to further reduce their carbon footprint, as well as noise pollution, and waste from their aircraft. Another notable contribution came from the FAA program known as CLEEN (Continuous Lower Energy, Emissions and Noise), which provided funding for an adaptive trailing edge for the airplane and a portion of the flight test costs. Boeing plans to continue the ecoDemonstrator program with new test planes every year. For 2013, they are working on a wide-bodied plane with support from the FAA CLEEN program once again. The continuation of this partnership is a promising sign for the future of this program and the future of the entire industry.
This article is written by Boeing and not by the Quartz editorial staff.
http://qz.com/99889#1
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A car bomb was likely aimed at Myanmars Burmese Bin Laden

By Lily Kuo @lilkuo 1 hour ago
7/22/13
U Wirathu (middle), isn't your average peaceloving monk. Reuters / Soe Zeya Tun
A car bomb exploded near a mass Buddhist sermon on the outskirts of Myanmars second largest city on July 21a sign that violence could escalate in the former military regime as it attempts to transition into an open economy and democracy. At least five people were slightly injured. The explosion appeared to come from a car parked near where an anti-Muslim cleric, U Wirathu, who has called himself the Burmese Bin Laden, was speaking on the outskirts of Mandalay. Wirathu has risen to prominence for his vitriolic sermons against Muslims (and calling for measures like restricting Muslim-Buddhist marriages). He leads a movement of Buddhist monks called 969 that has been blamed for fanning violence, which has result in more than 200 deaths and the displacement of about 150,000 peoplemostly Muslimsover the past year. Ethnic and religious tensions will almost certainly rise as a result of this attack, Arvind Ramakrishnan, an Asia analyst at the risk analysis firm Maplecroft told Quartz. Attacks against Muslims can be expected to intensify in the short to medium term.
PoliceandresidentsexamineacarafteranexplosionwentofflateonJuly21. APPhoto
Boasting abundant natural resources and a strategic location between India and China, Myanmar has attracted a rush of foreign investors interested in tapping its opening markets. But as violence between the countrys Buddhist majority and Muslim minority spreads across the country, businesses and foreign investors are taking pause and questioning its weak government. Authorities have done little to stop the violence. (Government corruption is already a concern.) In support of the countrys Buddhist majority, president Thein Seins office has described the 969 movement as a symbol of peace and Wirathu as a son of Lord Buddha. Just a day before the bombing, authorities lifted a state of emergency in the western state of Rakhine, where many of the countrys Muslims live and much of the violence has taken place.
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Wirathu, who continued speaking after the explosion, told the Associated Press that he believed the bomb was the work of Muslim extremists. Police say they are still investigating. Wirathu also took the chance to take a dig at Western media, after Time magazine featured him on cover earlier this month as the Face of Buddhist Terrorism. Wirathu said, The first threat to me was through the Time magazine. The second threat intended to silence him, he implied, was a car bomb.
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OCEANS APART
Shipping has already quadrupled this year through the melting Arctic
By Steve LeVine and David Yanofsky 3 hours ago
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The Suez Canal has new competition. Captains watching the creation of a rare new ocean passagethe Northern Sea Route through the melting Arcticsay that shipping has quadrupled (paywall) over just the last year. The routes governing bodyknown as the Northern Sea Route Administrationhas so far granted permission for 213 shipping trips through the passage this year. As this chart shows, that is up from 46 in 2012, 34 in 2011 and four in 2010. Its actually a slow buildupover the next couple of decades, traffic could be up 30-fold and ships could be moving a full quarter of the Asia-Europe trade through the Arctic, experts estimate. One of the main goods will be liquefied natural gas from northern Europe and Russia. The time ships save by traversing the new ocean passage is significant. A ship traveling from Rotterdam takes 33 days via the Suez Canal to reach South Korea, 10 days more than the 23 days via the Northern Sea Route. But the Suez need not feel threatenednot yet anyway. The 2012 Arctic traffic was 1.25 metric tons compared with 740 metric tons through the Suez. Before the Northern Sea Route truly gets busy, ports must be built for safety and relief purposes, and insurers will need to get more comfortable with the Arctic passage to lower their higher premiums for that route.
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This paralyzed taxi driver set o a bomb in the Beijing airport to protest injusticeand it worked
By Adam Pasick @adampasick 7 hours ago
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If Ji Zhongxing had set off a hand-made explosive in an airport in most other countries, he would be labeled a terrorist. But Ji, who was protesting a beating by local government officers in 2005 that left him paralyzed and in a wheelchair, is being hailed as a hero by many Chinese social media users. Whats more, officials in Guangdong, where Ji previously ran an unlicensed motorcycle taxi service, have been ordered to reopen his case. The unusual reaction highlights the fact that many Chinese are becoming increasingly outraged at cases of official misconduct, especially thuggish behavior by municipal urban management officers known as chengguan, who are known for heavy-handed crackdowns against street vendors and other independent businesses. There have been been several highprofile violent incidents involving chengguan in recent weeks, including a watermelon vendor in Hunan province who was beaten to death. The bomb that Ji set off on Saturday was filled with a small amount of black powderthe same explosive used by the Boston Marathon bombers, but in a much smaller quantity. Ji was the only person injured in the incident, and he showed no intent to harm others, warning bystanders to stand back before triggering the bomb.
Not all of Chinas frustrated citizens have been so considerate: In May a Xiamen man named Chen Shuizong, angry that officials refused to correct an error in his identity documents and give him social security benefits, killed 47 people including himself by setting a public bus on fire. By comparison Ji was described as a good person by social media users, and discussion of his action was not censored by Chinese internet authorities. China has an ancient tradition of petitioners who travel to the capital to seek redress for grievances. The modern version involves petitioning the influential users of microblogs like Sina Weibo. But the next frustrated bomberperhaps emboldened by the fact that Ji got
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sympathy from the internet and results from the governmentmay not be such a nice guy.
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FOWL PLAY
Police geese: A Chinese crime-ghting plan isnt quite as ridiculous as it sounds

By Jake Maxwell Watts @jmwatts_ 4 hours ago
7/22/13
Honk if you love police work. AP Photo/Frank Augstein
When the state-run Peoples Daily reported this week that geese were being used in the Xinjiang provinces war on crime, jokes about goose-stepping policeman were just too easy. Among all poultry, geese [are known] for being extremely vigilant and having excellent hearing, county police chief Zhang Quansheng told the paper. Geese are very brave. They spread their wings and will attack any strangers entering [someones] home, he said, like a radar that does not need power. But as daft as it sounds, Zhang could be on to something. The UN Food and Agricultural Organization notes that geese make excellent guards against approaching strangers or predators since outsiders cannot calm them into silence. Nor is China the first country to deploy tactical water fowl. The US military employed 900 geese to guard military installations in West Germany in 1986, and geese have even been credited with helping Rome fight the Gaul invasion in 390 BC. Whats more, the agriculture ministry of New South Wales in Australia somehow determined that the Chinese breed of goose is most effective as a sentinel (watchdog? watchgoose?) and helpfully notes that geese can even be used for weed control in the garden. Now if they could only do something about those politicians feathering their own nests
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Shinzo Abes mandate is now sealed. The question now is how hell use it
By Gwynn Guilford @sinoceros July 22, 2013
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Enjoying his fresh, new mandate. AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi
Prime minister Shinzo Abes coalition won at least 76 of 121 contested seats in elections for Japans upper house of parliament, based on early voting results. The coalitioncomprised of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its smaller ally, New Komeitowill now control both houses of parliament for the first time since 2007. The victory shores up Abes mandate for his sweeping economic reform program, which is popularly known as Abenomics. The program so far has been marked by aggressive quantitative easing by Japans central bank, as well as increased fiscal stimulus. Even though Abe disappointed with his third and final pillar of Abenomics, structural reform, 72% of voters approved of Abes economic management, according to exit polls. However, changing Japans economy, which has been mired in nearly two decades of deflation and minimal growth, isnt necessarily Abes priority anymore. The question now is whether the notoriously hawkish Abe will use that mandate to advance his economic agenda or instead turn his attention to changing the constitutions anti-war stance. While todays victory certainly makes that possible, it far from a guarantee. Amending the constitution requires a two-thirds majority from both houses of parliament as well as a voting majority in a national referendum. Winning public support will require a rigorous national debate. And it looks as though the LDP and its allies are still short of the super-majority they need to call a public referendum. Even if Abe does shift his focus on to changing the constitution, he still has plenty to flesh out when it comes to the structural reforms that are so critical to the long-term sustainability of Japans economy. With the era of partisan gridlock with the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DJP) behind itthe next national election is in 2016Abe will have a better shot at pushing through more ambitious reform than the measures he proposed in early June. However, its not all smooth sailing from here. The LDP isnt always easy to whip into formation, particularly on matters that involve deregulation. Plus, if Abe expends political capital on his plan to change the constitution, it could come at the expense of backing for his more radicaland necessarystructural reforms.
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July 15, 2013
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ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING
3D printing will explode in 2014, thanks to the expiration of key patents

By Christopher Mims @mims July 21, 2013
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Current 3D printers are cheap, but compared to where we're going, they're as Pong is to the iPhone. AP/Eric Risberg
Heres whats holding back 3D printing, the technology thats supposed to revolutionize manufacturing and countless other industries: patents. In February 2014, key patents that currently prevent competition in the market for the most advanced and functional 3D printers will expire, says Duann Scott, design evangelist at 3D printing company Shapeways. These patents cover a technology known as laser sintering, the lowest-cost 3D printing technology. Because of its high resolution in all three dimensions, laser sintering can produce goods that can be sold as finished products. Whenever someone talks about 3D printing revolutionizing manufacturing, theyre talking about the kinds of goods produced by, for example, the industrial-grade 3D printing machines used by Shapeways. The company used by countless industrial designers, artists and entrepreneurs who cant afford their own 3D laser sintering printers, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars each.
A huge drop in price and a ood of Chinese 3D printers
Oldermodelsof3DprintersarealreadypouringoutofChina. Xinhua
Once the key patents on 3D printing via laser sintering expire, we could see huge drop in the price of these devices, says Scott. This isnt just idle speculation; when the key patents expired on a more primitive form of 3D printing, known as fused deposition modeling, the result was an explosion of open-source FDM printers that eventually led to iconic home and hobbyist 3D printer manufacturer Makerbot. And Makerbot was recently acquired by 3D printing giant Stratasys for about $400 million in stock, plus a potential $200 million stock bonus. That acquisition was a homecoming of sorts for Makerbot; Stratasys was founded by Charles Hull, who invented 3D printing via FDM, the very technology on which Makerbot was based.
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Within just a few years of the patents on FDM expiring, the price of the cheapest FDM printers fell from many thousands of dollars to as little as $300. This led to a massive democratization of hobbyist-level 3D printers and injected a huge amount of excitement into the nascent movement of Makers, who manufacture at home on the scale of one object at a time. A similar sequence involving the lifting of intellectual property barriers, a rise in competition, and a huge drop in price is likely to play out again in laser deposition 3D printers, says Shapeways Scott. This is what happened with FDM, he says. As soon as the patents expired, everything exploded and went open-source, and now there are hundreds of FDM machines on the market. An FDM machine was $14,000 five years ago and now its $300. Many of those inexpensive 3D printers are being manufactured inwhere else?China. In addition to a thriving home-grown industry in 3D printers, in 2012 Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology launched an initiative to fund 10 research centers devoted to 3D printing, at a cost of 200 million yuan ($32 million).
Disruptive implications for industry and the democratization of distributed manufacturing
Copiesoffamousworksofartarejustthebeginning. AP/CosmoWenman
One thing a lot of observers dont understand about 3D printing is that not all 3D printing technologies are created equal. The revolution in manufacturing that was supposed to come with cheap, desktop 3D printers hasnt materialized because, frankly, the models they produce are basically novelties, handy for giving you a feel for what something will look like in three dimensions, but not really usable for creating prototypes that can be directly translated into molds for mass production, and certainly not usable for creating finished goods. With the expiration of patents on laser sintering 3D printing, however, all of that is about to change. Currently, designers who want to go from idea to finished product in a matter of
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hours, and create finished products to sell to the publiclike these accessories for Google Glasshave to order 3D prints from a company like Shapeways. The problem is, Shapeways services are in such demand that it takes two weeks to get a finished product from the company, which is hardly the future of instant manufacturing that 3D printing was supposed to enable. One of Shapeways problems is that the company cant buy enough advanced 3D printers (the laser-sintering kind) to keep up with demand. This is because 3D Systems, the company that makes the models that Shapeways uses, has a 12- to 18-month waitlist for its printers. Cheap laser-sintering 3D printers of the sort made by Formlabs, which sells a desktop laser-sintering 3D printer for $3,300, could finally give people the ability to manufacture (plastic) parts of the same quality as those mass-produced through traditional means, such as injection molding. (Formlabs got around the patent issue by first getting sued by and then licensing the IP of 3D Systems, which controls the key patents that are set to expire.) Or, if you believe Duann Scott, people will continue to use services like those of his company so that they can get even higher quality 3D prints, and in larger quantitiesand, potentially, much faster than the current turnaround time of two weeks. All of this means that the release of these patents could be an important step in getting us to the future of mass customization and distributed manufacturing that we were promised.
Now read this: Google is about to create a multi-billion dollar market for cyborg accessories
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Microsoft and Steve Ballmer have a major shareholder problem

By Gina Chon @GinaChon July 21, 2013
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Bending to shareholders' will. Reuters / Robert Galbraith
Microsofts stock plunge in the wake of disappointing earnings could force a compromise with shareholders pushing for a change. Activist investor ValueAct has been in talks for a few months about getting a seat on the technology companys board, according to sources. Microsoft had been resisting, but its recent performanceit lost $33.7 billion in market value on Fridayputs more pressure on Microsoft and its CEO Steve Ballmer to answer to investors. Quartz had previously reported that ValueAct was seeking a board seat, and Reuters said on Friday that two sides recently held discussions. Ballmer is largely handling the negotiations himself, the sources say. If ValueAct gets a board seat, it would likely be filled by the firms chief, Jeffrey Ubben. Another big Microsoft shareholder, Capital Research, has also been unhappy with Microsofts performance and is said to support ValueActs push for change at the company. Some of the weakness in Microsofts stock has been blamed on Ballmer. In 2011, hedge fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital publicly called for Ballmers removal. One of the main shareholder complaints is that Microsoft is spending too much on its weakening consumer business instead of its enterprise customers, which are the companys biggest source of revenue. Ballmers recent restructuring of Microsoft is indicative of his continued push in the consumer space, even though the company doesnt have a large market share in mobile phones or tablets. Investors criticized Microsofts recent move to launch 600 Windows stores at Best Buy locations in the US; Microsoft has just a 3% market share in smartphones. And part of the reason for Microsofts disappointing earnings report was a $900 million charge it took after weak sales of its Surface tablet, which was recently discounted by as much as 30% to boost slow demand. Its not only investors who have been unhappy with Microsofts focus on its consumer business. As Quartz reported previously, Ballmer also debated such issues with former CFO Peter Klein, who opposed spending more on tablet and mobile phone businesses. He left Microsoft in April, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family. Now some shareholders have their hopes pinned on ValueAct, which is known for working behind the scenes to push for changes at a company. Microsoft has given ValueAct access to its financials, sources say. In the past, ValueAct has been able to force major change at other firmsfor instance, Sara Lee and Motorolaeven when it only had one board seat.
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What Bill Gates is reading this summer

By Ritchie King @RitchieSKing July 20, 2013
This is not Oprah's book club. AP Photo/Miguel Villagran

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If youre in the market for a light, sunshine-friendly novelsomething with an up tempo narrative and relatable charactersthen Bill Gatess summer reading list is not for you. But if youre a non-fiction buff with a wide range of interests, then it might be the perfect place to look for a new book. The list, which the Microsoft chairman posted on his blog Gates Notes, is his own personal reading agenda for the seasonnot a collection of books that hes already read and feels inspired to promote (with the exception of one of them). It includes eight titles in all, and seven are non-fiction. I dont generally read a lot of fiction, Gates writes next to the entry for Robert Cooks Patriot & Assassin, the sole novel in the list. Taken together, the lineup reveals Gates to be a total intellectual omnivore. Notably, there isnt a single book about computing or technology. The non-fiction titles range from a psychologists exploration of stereotypes to a history of the shipping container and its impact on globalization. Hes already finished reading the first book on the listJared Diamonds The
World Until Yesterdayand has posted his own review of it. Heres the list in full:
The Bill Gates summer reading list

1. The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional
Societies? by Jared Diamond, 2012

2. The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the
World Economy Bigger by Marc Levinson, 2008

3. However Long the Night: Molly Melchings Journey to Help Millions of
African Women and Girls by Aimee Molloy, 2013

4. How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of
Character by Paul Tough, 2013

5. Japans Dietary Transition and Its Impacts by Vaclav Smil and Kazuhiko Kobayashi, 2012 6. Made in the USA: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing by Vaclav Smil, 2013 7. Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can
Do by Claude Steele, 2011

8. Patriot & Assassin by Robert Cook, 2013
Gates is known to be a voracious reader. He traditionally would twice a year spend a week at a cottage in the Pacific Northwest (paywall), poring over proposals and technical papers from Microsoft employees, pausing to solve bridge challenges and swig Diet Orange Crush. On the blog where he posted his summer reads, Gates also lists a catalogue of nearly 150 books, each of which contains a link to either a summary or a review by Gates himself, like the one he wrote of The World Until Yesterday. He categorizes them into five separate groups:
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education, energy, development, health, and personal. That last category includes books about history, science, and economics as well as some memoirs and two works of fictionThe
Hunger Games and The Catcher in the Rye. By personal Gates must mean things that hes
interested in, but for which he doesnt see an immediate practical applicationfew of us would think to classify a book like Nate Silvers The Signal and the Noise that way.
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How online shopping boosts in-store sales

By Valerie Ross July 21, 2013 Valerie Ross is a science and travel writer based in New York City.
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Online shoppers aren't closing the deal. Reuters/Regis Duvignau
Shopping online makes it easy for customers to find exactly what they want without scouring store shelves for elusive gadgets, dishware, or toys. The downside is that customers have to wait several days, and often pay, for delivery. Alternatively, customers who head to an old-fashioned, brick-and-mortar store to make a purchase are provided same-day satisfactionunless of course the desired product is not in stock. But just a couple years ago, retailers began to offer a third optioncalled Buy Online, Pick Up in Store (or BOPS for short)which gives customers the best of both worlds. Customers find the item they want online, where they also check its availability at a nearby brick-and-mortar. If the product is in stock, they can purchase it online and find it ready for pick-up at the local store, generally within one to three hours. Antonio Moreno, an assistant professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at the Kellogg School of Management, wondered how this new option impacts customers. Changes in this space affect the experience of the customer, Moreno says, but no one had really studied how these online and brick-and-mortar channels interact. By extension, the researchers were also interested in how BOPS would affect a companys operations (as customers who utilize BOPS receive inventory from local stores instead of a central warehouse) and even its bottom line.
The BOPS eect

Moreno and his colleague Santiago Gallino, an assistant professor at Dartmouth College, teamed up with a major retailer with more than 80 stores in the US and Canada. The company, which specializes in housewares, home accessories, and furniture, was a pioneer in implementing the BOPS option, offering it throughout in the US beginning in October 2011. The researchers examined a full years worth of data from the companyincluding transactions, total sales, and number of shoppersto observe how BOPS changed purchasing habits both online and in-store. To tease out the effect of BOPS in particular, they relied on the fact that not all shoppers were close enough to get to a store, and that the chains four Canadian stores did not offer the BOPS service. The researchers then compared the online purchasing behavior of these customers, who were unable to take advantage of BOPS, to that of customers who could take advantage of the service. Conventional wisdom said that offering customers the BOPS options would increase online sales; after all, a BOPS purchase counts as online revenue since shoppers pay through the website. But when the researchers examined the data, they found that online sales were actually going down in areas near a store, compared to areas far from a store, after BOPS was
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implemented. Odder still, online sales were decreasing even as traffic was increasing on the retailers website. And when Moreno and Gallino turned their attention to brick-and-mortar stores, they found increases in sales and visitors at American stores, which offered the service, compared to Canadian stores, which did not.
A mysterious pattern explained

What was going on? Why would implementing BOPS drive visitorsbut not salesto the website, while also increasing visits and sales at local stores? We started thinking about what in the operations literature could possibly explain this behavior of people going more to the stores after this option was available, Moreno says, and that was when we came up with the idea of reliability of inventory information. That is, customers might often be using BOPS not as a way to buy goods, but as a dependable way to check brick-and-mortar inventory. (In retail, this method is known as Research Online, Purchase Offline or ROPO.) Many customers may be disinclined to purchase an espresso maker or duvet cover online, where they cannot inspect the product. However, if they are given the option of purchasing the product online for pick up in a local store two hours later, they know it has to be in stock and can plan accordingly. Indeed, the researchers found additional evidence that online visitors might be purchasing products offline in cart-abandonment data: after BOPS implementation, visitors who lived close to a store were more likely than those who did not to abandon or fail to purchase items in online shopping carts. The most surprising thing to me was that online sales went down when the customers were given more options, Moreno says. If youre a customer and were planning to buy online, now you have even more reasons to [do so], because now you could buy online and pick up in the store, saving on shipping and vastly decreasing wait time. We thought it would make the online channel more attractive, but what happened was that it led to this shift towards brickand-mortar stores, which is a good thing for the company, supporting that branch of the retail business in an age of online-only competition.
Managers take note!

The BOPS option also increased sales overall, the researchers found. While online sales decreased slightly, in-store sales increased more than online sales decreased. This shows the benefit such programs can have for retailers. It also, Moreno says, highlights how companies may need to change their traditional thinking about keeping online and in-store salesand compensationseparate. The company the researchers worked with had an online team that received bonuses and commissions based on online sales. Likewise, the companys brick-and-mortar team received compensation based on in-store sales. But when you have an integrated retailer, Moreno explains, it makes more sense to offer different incentives that will compensate the online team if that sale originated online but was actually closed in the store.
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This post originally appeared on Kellogg Insight. It has been reprinted with permission. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.
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The cheapest World Cup nal ticket will cost the average Brazilian 25 hours of work
By Lily Kuo and Ritchie King July 19, 2013
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Many in Brazil think the World Cup comes at too high a cost. Reuters / Pilar Olivares
Tickets for next years World Cup in Brazil are supposed to be among the cheapest theyve ever been, according to FIFA, soccers governing body. Though prices, which were announced today, can get pretty high, local residents will be able to purchase tickets to most games for as low as 60 reals ($27). But affordability isnt just a function of price; it also depends on how much money you have. And adjusting for average wage in the host country, tickets to this years World Cup are arguably among the most expensive in recent times. We looked at the cheapest ticket to the World Cup championship match in Brazil (330 reals, or $147) and the previous six host cities to determine how many hours an average local would have to work to buy a seat (using income data from the time of each tournament). By that measure, only South Africa in 2010 was more expensive.
A FIFA spokesperson said that Quartzs analysis of the ticket prices is not accurate, adding, The ticket system has been created to provide a fair and equal chance to all Brazilians to have a chance to buy a ticket for a FIFA World Cup match. Ticket prices are one of the most controversial issues of hosting the World Cupand one reason why FIFA held an hour-and-a-half press conference today hashing out details of its ticket scheme. Critics charge that locals, who foot much of the bill with tax money, often cant even afford to go to the event. Last month, more than a million demonstrators in Brazil protested over the large sums being spent to host the tournament rather than on services for the general public. Thats one reason why officials promised to donate as many as 100,000 tickets to poor and indigenous communities in Brazil as well as to the construction workers who built the
7/22/13
stadiums. They are offering a 50% discount to students and the elderly, meaning some seats will be available for as low as 30 reals (about $14). FIFA said that price was the cheapest of any World Cup tickets offered since 1990.
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REWIND
This weeks most important econ datain charts

By Matt Phillips @MatthewPhillips July 19, 2013
This weeks economic updates didnt exactly offer a global picture on the state of the economy. The most important releases centered on the UK and the US. (Although a report on Chinese GDP early in the week was notable.) But a clear takeaway from the dataas well as the earnings updates from major corporationswas that the resilient US economy is a corporate sweet spot for growth. Heres a day-by-day snapshot of the week:
Monday
1. Chinese GDP slowed to 7.5% in the second quarter, extending the longest string of sub-8% growth in at least two decades.
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2. Autos helped produce decent retail sales in June. (But slightly less than economists expected.)
Furniture sales spiked, indicating that the benefits of the housing recovery are touching more parts of the US economy.
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3. The Empire State Manufacturing Survey bounced further into economic expansion territory. (Which is basically anything above zero.) A gauge of manufacturing conditions in New York, the survey is one of the earliest reliable pieces of economic data available in the current month.
Tuesday
5. US industrial production did better than expected in June as factories churned out more computers and cars.
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Wednesday
6. The UK job market showed slow improvement, as the number of people claiming unemployment benefits shrank for the eighth straight month. Still, it remains quite elevated.
7. Headline US housing starts showed a sharp drop in June, when they fell 9.9%. But it was all driven by the volatile multifamily sector.
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Thursday
8. Nominal UK retail sales rose for the second straight month, the first time theyve pulled off the feat since last July.
Friday
9. Brazils painful price increases eased slightly in early July, after officials rolled back increased prices of public transport that had helped set off mass protests.
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India holds the key to Bhutans economic success, and its failures
By Devjyot Ghoshal July 20, 2013 Devjyot Ghoshal is a former Southeast Asia correspondent for Business Standard. He will attend Columbia University's journalism school as a Fulbright scholar this fall.
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Electric power: Bhutan's biggest source of revenue and debt. Reuters / Adnan Abidi
Its known as the Chickens Neck, a 30-odd km wide strip of land that connects mainland India to its seven northeastern provinces. To the north of this narrow swathe, lies Bhutan, surrounded on three sides by Indiaand beyond that China. That strategic location has meant two things for Bhutan: The tiny landlocked country of less than 750,000 people has always held much strategic significance for India. And, that it cant really get by without help from New Delhi. But on July 13, when Bhutan, the youngest democracy in the world, held elections only for the second time in its history, it was amidst a period of unusual acrimony with its neighbor: the worlds largest democracy, India. New Delhi recently withdrew crucial energy subsidies to Bhutan, leading to prices of kerosene and cooking gas spiralling in the Himalayan nation. Speculation was rife that this could be a rebuke to Bhutan after its former Prime Minister Jigme Y. Thinley met former Chinese premiere Wen Jiabao in Brazil last year. India makes no apologies for dominating the countrys foreign policy on the basis of a 1949 treaty, despite a 2007 revision thats given the Bhutanese greater control over their external affairs. Some say that, on July 13, it will not be the people of Bhutan but the worlds largest democracy that could win the elections in the worlds youngest democracy, read a recent editorial in Bhutans Kuensel newspaper. Yet, India is also Bhutans largest trade and development partner, and has helped build
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everything from cement and hydroelectric plants to an airport, a broadcasting station and highways there. In 2009, energy-starved India agreed to buy 10,000 MW of power from Bhutan by 2020, alongside providing loans to build the 10 hydroelectric projects in the countrys fast-moving mountain rivers. 10,000 MW of renewable power is significant. Its the sort of generation that US solar power producers are just about reaching now, and Bhutan can potentially produce over twice as much. But the substantial earnings that these projects are expected to bring to Bhutans exchequer could be spent in settling the huge Indian loans that will be accumulated; and its only normal in these parts to expect construction delays and cost escalation. There are other fears: The projected cost of some of these hydro-power installations, including the under-construction Punatshangchu I project, is larger than Bhutans total gross domestic product (GDP). The risks, therefore, cannot be ignored. Nonetheless, in a country that has seen its GDP grow by over 9% last year, and per capita income rise from $1,750 in 2008 to $2,420 last year, such calls for slowing down arent often heeded, especially with a growing neighbour like India that is hungry for electricity. Maybe thats why Thinleys Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT) party, accused by some of fraying relations with India, was swept aside in the recent elections. And new Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay will not only have to assuage New Delhi, but ensure that Bhutan can sustain its growth momentum without damaging its modest economy. That, though, could be a chicken-and-egg problem.
We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

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QUARTZ EVENTS
Three things you need to understand about 3D printing to talk about it intelligently
By Rachel Feltman @rachelfeltman July 20, 2013
7/22/13
Quartz reporter Christopher Mims (far right) moderated the discussion. Quartz / Mia Mabanta
Several of the biggest brains in 3D printing joined Quartz for a discussion about the future of the technology at General Assembly in New York City on July 16. Here are the three most interesting things we learned.
1. Customization is eectively free with 3D printing

The upsides of 3D printing are all about total customization. Joergen Geerds, an artist and entrepreneur known for his use of 3D printers to make panoramic photography, pointed out that the NASA US space agency is now using 3D printers to make otherwise expensive rocket components. And doctors are using 3D printers to produce custom hip replacements that fit patients perfectly. Complexity is free, said Duann Scott of 3D printing market Shapeways. So customization is free. A room full of identical chairs costs much less than a room full of custom-fit seats when you use traditional manufacturing methodsbut with 3D printing they cost exactly the same as their bespoke counterparts, as long as the materials are the same. Thats because you can use a different design for each individual item without resetting machinery or making new molds.
2. Software needed for 3D printing will get easier by necessity

Standard CAD product engineering software takes hundreds of hours to learn, mostly because its not about creating a literal model of what you want to print. Youre planning for the things enacted in the manufacturing process that will make the shape you want, said Matthew Griffin of Adafruit, a site for buying electronics parts and learning how to tinker with them. Its kind of a proxy. You have to learn the metaphors and just go native, but before that point it can be frustrating to even navigate the design space. But there is already a range of options for 3D printing software, said Lizabeth Arum of 3D printer maker Makerbots nonprofit educational initiative makerbot.org. Shes seen middle school students take to some, like Tinkercad, incredibly quickly. As years go on, its going to get easier and easier. Soon, it may even be as simple as playing a game. Scott recounted the story of a university student whod created a model of his campus on the boxel-based building game Minecraft. It took 600 hours, but he told reporters that it hadnt been a laborious process. Hed just been playing. When I started using 3D printing, I had a paradigm shift from pixel based worlds into an engineering based world, which was difficult, Geerds said, So Im hoping that we see a
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model like Minecraft soon.
3. 3D printing isnt good for a lot of things

Easier interfaces are key to making 3D printing mainstream, the panel agreed, but material limitations are also a concern. Right now, Scott said, You can only use one material at a time. Most things around you are made from multiple materials. This microphone has a shit ton of stuff inside of it. Not being able to print electronics and their casings in one go, the panelists said, was a major drawback. There are plenty of things (like firearms) that you could probably make with a 3D printer, but shouldntand not just because of possible legal issues. The mechanisms of a gun arent easily produced by a 3D printer, and will perform sub-optimally. This concept, Scott said, extends to other products as well: Just because we can print it doesnt mean we ever will. And 3D printing wont be changing the way all manufacturing works, the panelists agreed. Its not a place for manufacturing, its a place for prototyping, Arum said, And it has certain uses, but it wont transform everything. Griffin concluded that most of the overhype of 3D printing comes from a misunderstanding of what exactly a 3D printer is. Theres a lot of conflation, with people saying were 3D printing organs and key fobs, Griffin said. But theyre talking about different machines and different goals. The machines are evolving so separately. The fact that one expensive, highly specialized machine can print cars from carbon fiber filament, he said, doesnt mean that this is something all 3D printers will be enlisted to do.
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SPILLED MILK
Why you shouldnt care that a Picasso was destroyed

By David Yanofsky @YAN0 July 19, 2013
7/22/13
Picasso's "Harlequin Head," gone, but not forgotten. Reuters/Stoyan Nenov
Yesterday, the mother of a suspected art thief claimed to have burned her sons loot in a wood-burning sauna oven in Romania. Today, investigators have determined that evidence collected in that oven such as certain pigment residues, and pre-Industrial copper nails and tacks suggests Olga Dogaru destroyed at least some turn-of-the-century paintings. The director of Romanias National History Museum told the New York Times such destruction was a barbarian crime against humanity. Equating the destruction of 5 paintings and 2 drawingsby Picasso, Monet, Gauguin, Matisse, Meyer de Haan and Lucian Freudto systematic pillaging of civilian populations is beyond ridiculous. The impact of losing these piecesespecially in the age of the internetis trivial. Works of art are not sacred objects. While experiencing traditional works of art in person can by no means be replicated through reproduction, all of the works have at least some level of full-color visual documentation of their existence. Considering very few people would have ever seen any of these works in person in their lifetime and that most art history education is premised on studying reproductions of works in books, on screen, and in presentations, the primary impact of these works was not lost in a Romanian oven. Works in the most popular exhibitions are only seen by a select few. In 2012, the most popular exhibition in the world, Masterpieces from the Mauritshuis at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, saw 10,573 visitors a day and less than 800,000 total, according to a survey by The Art Newspaper (pdf). The Louvre, the most-visited museum in the world, had 9.7 million visitors in 2012, only 0.14% of the worlds population. Yet the Mona Lisa is known the world over through its reproductions. Printed and digital reproductions of the works will live on forever, just as other destroyed works have. Duchamps landmark Fountain was lost, yet it is a keystone in the teaching of Modern art. Any casual follower of art history knows the importance of this signed urinal even though the original has been destroyed. Three-hundred works by Rodin were destroyed when the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001, but hundreds more persist in museums, galleries, and private collections around the world. Of course this is a tragedy for the owner of the works, the Triton Foundation, just as it is a tragedy for a homeowner to lose their home to fire
FountainPhotographbyAlfredStieglitz
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or flood. (Though in this case its a homeowner with hundreds of homes.) It is less of a tragedy, but still unfortunate, to the future scholars who will not be able to travel across the world to handle, scan, and study these pieces for their research. Luckily, digital archiving allows for some continued study of the works. Furthermore, none of these works are seminal masterpieces or by artists with small surviving collections. The world did not lose Guernica or Water Lillies or The Vision of the Sermon. Other works by these artists can be found in most western museums. More people know these works now that they have been cremated. Their destruction has made them more famous and more widely seen than ever before. There is no need to mourn them.
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share
SOMETHING TO SING ABOUT
These songs cost upwards of $14 apiece, and people are actually paying
By Rachel Feltman @rachelfeltman July 19, 2013
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If you havent heard of DJ Earworm, youve probably heard his mixes: His United State of Pop,a series of massive mash-ups that turn 12 months worth of top-40 hits into a single song, take over the internet once a year like clockwork. But even with over 100 million views on Youtube and a commission to make mashups for the London Olympics, DJ Earworm has never been able to sell his music legally. Now hes the latest artist to join Legitmix, a website that uses unique software and a loophole in copyright law to pay remixers. But what makes Legitmix legal also makes Earworms songs cost more than most albums. To put out a remix or mashup, Legitmix founder Omid McDonald told Quartz, you need to get licenses for both the sound recording and composition of the sampled songs. This expensive, complicated, and time consuming process makes it impossible for most remixers to legally distribute their work. Legitmix uses an algorithmone that McDonald says took a year and $1 million to developto create a file of digital instructions for recreating mixes. The file is essentially what remains of the song when tracks owned by other artists are subtracted. Legitmix sells this file to its users for a dollar (taking a 30% cut and giving the rest to the remixer). If users already own the copyrighted track, they just download the Legitmix file, which then creates the mix for them on their own computer. What makes Legitmix legal is that it isnt technically selling copyrighted material, but rather the means to recreate it (without any DJing expertise). If users dont own the tracks used in a mix, the site lets them purchase through iTunes, making sure that the original artists make their fair cut. Most tracks on Legitmix cost $2.29, consisting of one Legitmix file and one track from iTunes. But in addition to being its most famous remixer so far, DJ Earworm is also the most prolific sampler: His United State of Pop mix for 2012 has a whopping 25 songs by other artists in it
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(which adds up to $32.25 to buy it legally) and his popular SummerMash 13 has 10, costs about $14. With no advertising except for a link to Ligitmix under its YouTube video, SummerMash has sold 700 copies, with 100 of those buyers paying for the complete $14 package. Only a small fraction of the 4500 viewers click through to the buy page, but thats not bad considering that the mix is readily available for free download elsewhere. The existing copyright laws were not designed for the realities of todays remix culture, McDonald said. While they provide a simple way to sell cover songs without needing to negotiate with the copyright holders, no such statutory framework exists for remixing. So most remixes are released for free online, creating a situation where neither remixer nor sampled artist benefit, with the value captured instead by ISPs, pirate sites, music blogs and streaming sites. We hope our technology will serve as a technological bridge until the copyright laws are changed to accommodate remix. Sales of SummerMash over the past couple weeks are far from staggering. But the fact that there are people willing to shell out $14 for a single song bodes well for artists like Earworm and for the future of fair, profitable remixes.
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HEDGE TRIMMING
Charges could result in Steve Cohens worst nightmare: keeping his hands o rich peoples money
By Simone Foxman @simonefoxman July 19, 2013
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The horror. Reuters/Steve Marcus
The longrunning insider trading investigation of Stephen A. Cohen and his hedge fund, SAC Capital, has finally come to a head. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Cohen with failing to supervise two senior employees and prevent them from conducting insider trading. If found guilty, Cohen could face financial penalties, a supervisory and financial services industry bar, and other relief, according to an SEC press release. The charges come just ahead of a legal deadline government was facing to file a suit against Cohen based on the evidence gathered. Other regulatory organizationssuch the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) may still file additional, possibly criminal charges. The SEC has had a busy day. Earlier today, it rejected an $18 million settlement that its enforcement division had struck with hedge fund investor Phil Falcone and his firm, Harbinger Capital Partners. The SEC accused Falcone of market manipulation, borrowing from client money to pay his taxes, and giving special preference to certain investors. Together, these incidents seem to amount to a crackdown on high-flying hedge fund managers. According to sources familiar with the proceedings, the SEC rejected Falcones settlement specifically because it wouldnt have barred him from investing in the market or managing money in the future. It did include a two-year ban on raising new capital, but even that ban had loopholes. The effectiveness of the crackdown remains to be seen. Not only do Cohen and Falcones firms boast massive legal teams; the charges levied against them are difficult to prove. For example, proving that Falcone manipulated markets would require demonstrating that, without a doubt, he actually intended his trades to affect the price of securities. Thats tough,
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because the actions of an investor whos trying to game the system look remarkably similar to those of one whos just trying to make a profit. In Cohens case, the SEC apparently didnt have enough evidence to directly accuse Cohen of insider trading. Even if hes convicted of failure to supervise, he might not be barred from the industry.
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Robots Will Take Our Jobs, But It's Hard To Say When - Quartz

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A Smart Approach to Landings

Building a Better GPS

Arrest in Glaxos China bribery scandal unnerves foreign consultants

Where eciency is discovered

A car bomb was likely aimed at Myanmars Burmese Bin Laden

A Smart Approach to Landings

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Police geese: A Chinese crime-ghting plan isnt quite as ridiculous as it sounds

Honk if you love police work. AP Photo/Frank Augstein

Enjoying his fresh, new mandate. AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi

Where eciency is discovered

July 15, 2013

3D printing will explode in 2014, thanks to the expiration of key patents

A huge drop in price and a ood of Chinese 3D printers

Disruptive implications for industry and the democratization of distributed manufacturing

Microsoft and Steve Ballmer have a major shareholder problem

Bending to shareholders' will. Reuters / Robert Galbraith

What Bill Gates is reading this summer

This is not Oprah's book club. AP Photo/Miguel Villagran

The Bill Gates summer reading list

Societies? by Jared Diamond, 2012

World Economy Bigger by Marc Levinson, 2008

African Women and Girls by Aimee Molloy, 2013

Character by Paul Tough, 2013

Do by Claude Steele, 2011

How online shopping boosts in-store sales

Online shoppers aren't closing the deal. Reuters/Regis Duvignau

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A mysterious pattern explained

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We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

1. Customization is eectively free with 3D printing

2. Software needed for 3D printing will get easier by necessity

model like Minecraft soon.

3. 3D printing isnt good for a lot of things

A Smart Approach to Landings

Building a Better GPS

Why you shouldnt care that a Picasso was destroyed

Picasso's "Harlequin Head," gone, but not forgotten. Reuters/Stoyan Nenov

SOMETHING TO SING ABOUT

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The horror. Reuters/Steve Marcus

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