Clipboard Brief: #2

Some interesting things I came across recently —

“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion draws all things else to support and agree with it” — Francis Bacon

1. Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (The New Yorker)
   Citing psychological studies at Stanford, this article suggests that while we’re quite adept at spotting weaknesses in someone else’s argument, invariably the positions we’re blind about are our own.
2. How America Lost Faith in Expertise (Foreign Affairs)
   If you’re picking just one read, let this be it.
   Summary: Modern society has prospered largely because of structures that can create collective benefit from individual expertise. Today, bridled by the clout of sophisticated experts in a complex world, people are (re)asserting their autonomy by shunning the advice of experts. The article outlines what this means in the context of a representative democracy.
   Also see a piece that relates this phenomenon to the diminishing authority of central bankers.
3. Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence? (Scientific American)
   “Our society is at a crossroads — If ever more powerful algorithms would be controlled by a few decision-makers and reduce our self-determination, we would fall back in a Feudalism 2.0, as important historical achievements would be lost. Now, however, we have the chance to choose the path to digital democracy or democracy 2.0, which would benefit us all”.
   Complimentary read: Inside Facebook’s AI Machine
4. How Technology Gets Us Hooked (The Guardian)
   The illusion of progress — the sense of creating something that requires labour and effort and expertise — is a major force behind addictive acts that last as long as you achieve high scores or acquire more followers or improve your skills.
5. A Tax on Robots? (Project Syndicate)
   An interesting rebuttal to Bill Gates’s recent proposal that robots should be taxed to ease the inequality and offset the social costs implied by automation’s displacement effects.

Two additional sources —

1. General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt’s annual letter to shareowners.
2. Carlyle’s David Rubenstein in conversation with Alphabet’s Eric Schmidt.

The David Rubenstein Show: Eric Schmidt