Standout Stories
Machines may be taking over finance… I [John Parkinson] have been interested in artificial intelligence (AI) – the concept that humans can design a machine that thinks for itself without explicitly provide instructions (or a “program”) — since the early 1970s. As an undergraduate math major, I wrote a program designed to learn to play the game of Monopoly (checkers was too easy, chess was too hard). The program “knew” the objective, the layout of the board, the rules of play, and the content of the three stacks of cards that drive the game. It could handle up to 8 players.
It wasn’t very smart, but it had one great advantage — it could play thousands of games against itself, remember the outcomes, and analyze why it had won (someone always wins) or lost using some simple algorithms. After a few weeks it was virtually unbeatable against one or more humans. I had stumbled onto a primitive form of “machine learning.” Read full article.
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Digital help for an inefficient industry… Mention “logistics” and it may bring to mind shiny FedEx or UPS vans with their neatly uniformed drivers. However, the business of shifting cargo by road, especially larger loads, is far more fragmented and inefficient than the image of its best-known brands would suggest.
Even the world-famous names in parcel delivery compete with many lesser firms. Likewise, “third-party logistics” — the outsourcing of a business’s transport needs, including running fleets of lorries and vans on its behalf — also has some big firms but lots of smaller ones. Read full article.
Headlines
Facebook Changes U.K. Accounting Policy
The change may ease criticism over Facebook’s overseas tax arrangements but won’t necessarily mean a tax windfall for the U.K. government.
Verizon Fined $1.3M Over Use of ‘Supercookies’
The FCC says the largest U.S. cell provider failed to disclose it was injecting tracking code into web traffic to serve advertisers.
Road Haulage: The Apply Trucker
Digital help is at hand for a fragmented and often inefficient industry.
Will Machines Take Over Finance?
A lot of “knowledge work” today is really just the routine application of a set of rules, with some ability to identify situational errors and exceptions.
Softbank to Split Domestic, Overseas Units
The Japanese conglomerate’s move may ease investor concerns that it would use money earned in Japan to help turn around loss-making Sprint.
Fed Proposes Limits on Banks’ Credit Exposure
The new effort to reduce systemic risk in the industry is a less restrictive version of a 2011 rule that met with strong criticism from banks.
Buffet Chains’ Owner Goes Chapter 11 Again
The operator of HomeTown Buffet and other chains says an $11.3 million court award in a food poisoning case prompted the bankruptcy filing.
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