Menu
Cognitive
3 White Collar Jobs That Robots Are Already Mastering
June 20, 2015
Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen plenty of blue collar jobs outsourced to machines — from auto assembly to customer service. Now, as computers, equipped with artificial intelligence, increasingly take over “information jobs,” tasks that were once reserved for skilled, college-educated white collar professionals are vulnerable. That’s the argument made by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Martin Ford in a new book, “Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future.” *...
June 20, 2015
Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen plenty of blue collar jobs outsourced to machines — from auto assembly to customer service. Now, as computers, equipped with artificial intelligence, increasingly take over “information jobs,” tasks that were once reserved for skilled, college-educated white collar professionals are vulnerable. That’s the argument made by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Martin Ford in a new book, “Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future.” *...
Greek Game Theory Real-Time: My Big Fat Greek Divorce
June 18, 2015
Some people, including possibly Mr Tsipras, have concluded that the price of Grexit is so high that Greece can count on the euro zone giving ground at the last minute. But that is reckless. If the euro is to endure, its rules must be enforceable. So long as the monetary union is forged between sovereign states the principles of irrevocability and enforceability are contradictory. Yet you can be sure there is a limit to what the euro zone will tolerate—even if nobody knows where it lies. * * * Most...
June 18, 2015
Some people, including possibly Mr Tsipras, have concluded that the price of Grexit is so high that Greece can count on the euro zone giving ground at the last minute. But that is reckless. If the euro is to endure, its rules must be enforceable. So long as the monetary union is forged between sovereign states the principles of irrevocability and enforceability are contradictory. Yet you can be sure there is a limit to what the euro zone will tolerate—even if nobody knows where it lies. * * * Most...
Negotiation and Memory
June 16, 2015
Is it true that as we get older, we tend to forget things more easily? Or is it that some things are just less important? As negotiators and mediators, we often deal with complex layers of information that appear all too much for any one person to recall. So we enter the negotiation room burdened with our big folders or sporting our slim iPads laden with mega data containing all the information that we might possibly need. I wonder though, if we sometimes rely too much on the documents when we could...
June 16, 2015
Is it true that as we get older, we tend to forget things more easily? Or is it that some things are just less important? As negotiators and mediators, we often deal with complex layers of information that appear all too much for any one person to recall. So we enter the negotiation room burdened with our big folders or sporting our slim iPads laden with mega data containing all the information that we might possibly need. I wonder though, if we sometimes rely too much on the documents when we could...
Greek Game Theory: Negotiations Look Increasingly Like a Deadly Scene in ‘Rebel Without A Cause’
June 16, 2015
So what game are the Greeks playing? Here are four possible hypotheses: * * * Game 2: they are bluffing and they are only now realising that they have miscalculated. Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza party are newcomers to the high politics of the EU. They won election in January believing that they could win the argument against “austerity” and find like-minded friends across Europe. The past few months have been a painful education in the realities of European politics. Mr Varoufakis’s...
June 16, 2015
So what game are the Greeks playing? Here are four possible hypotheses: * * * Game 2: they are bluffing and they are only now realising that they have miscalculated. Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza party are newcomers to the high politics of the EU. They won election in January believing that they could win the argument against “austerity” and find like-minded friends across Europe. The past few months have been a painful education in the realities of European politics. Mr Varoufakis’s...
To Build Rapport – Laugh Together!
June 15, 2015
Happiness is important for economic growth, sustainable development and well-being which can only occur if rapport and relationships exist. A recent study shows that laughing together builds rapport (which hopefully will lead to a relationship!) If we have shared a laugh with someone, we tend to be more open with that person. As with most studies, this one was performed using college students (at Oxford University in England .) As explained in Science Daily: To investigate the role and influence...
June 15, 2015
Happiness is important for economic growth, sustainable development and well-being which can only occur if rapport and relationships exist. A recent study shows that laughing together builds rapport (which hopefully will lead to a relationship!) If we have shared a laugh with someone, we tend to be more open with that person. As with most studies, this one was performed using college students (at Oxford University in England .) As explained in Science Daily: To investigate the role and influence...
Greece’s Game Theorists Are Gambling the Future of Their Country. And Europe’s Too.
June 14, 2015
The latest failure to find a formula to unlock as much as 7.2 billion euros ($8.1 billion) in aid for the anti-austerity government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was accompanied by warnings about the risk of Greece’s exit from the 19-nation euro. “The shadow of a Greek exit from the euro zone is becoming increasingly perceptible,” German and Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel wrote in an op-ed to be published in Bild newspaper on Monday. “Greece’s game theorists are gambling...
June 14, 2015
The latest failure to find a formula to unlock as much as 7.2 billion euros ($8.1 billion) in aid for the anti-austerity government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was accompanied by warnings about the risk of Greece’s exit from the 19-nation euro. “The shadow of a Greek exit from the euro zone is becoming increasingly perceptible,” German and Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel wrote in an op-ed to be published in Bild newspaper on Monday. “Greece’s game theorists are gambling...
Real-Time Game Theory: Greek Finance Minister Wrote the Book on Game Theory, But May Yet Lose
June 13, 2015
No party to these debt negotiations knows more about Nash equilibriums than Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, an academic economist who co-authored a textbook on game theory and who took to Twitter after the recent death of John Nash Jr. to express his debt to the genius mathematician. In its simplest form, a Nash equilibrium exists when no single party to a negotiation perceives that they have anything to gain by unilaterally changing their position. Failure to reach a deal will leave...
June 13, 2015
No party to these debt negotiations knows more about Nash equilibriums than Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, an academic economist who co-authored a textbook on game theory and who took to Twitter after the recent death of John Nash Jr. to express his debt to the genius mathematician. In its simplest form, a Nash equilibrium exists when no single party to a negotiation perceives that they have anything to gain by unilaterally changing their position. Failure to reach a deal will leave...
Real-Time Game Theory: Fears of Greece Eurozone Exit Mount as EU Deadline Looms
June 13, 2015
Greek finance minister says he does not believe Europe would let his country leave the eurozone, but decision on its fate is expected by Thursday It appeared that Greece was still refusing to back down. In a policy document leaked to the Greek press, the Tsipras government once again called for a debt restructuring and ruled out pension cuts or labour market reforms that would include wage decreases. It attacked the IMF’s decision to walk out of negotiations on Thursday, arguing that it represented...
June 13, 2015
Greek finance minister says he does not believe Europe would let his country leave the eurozone, but decision on its fate is expected by Thursday It appeared that Greece was still refusing to back down. In a policy document leaked to the Greek press, the Tsipras government once again called for a debt restructuring and ruled out pension cuts or labour market reforms that would include wage decreases. It attacked the IMF’s decision to walk out of negotiations on Thursday, arguing that it represented...
50 Most Cited Private Law Articles
June 13, 2015
Harvard’s Project on the Foundations of Private Law has started an interesting blog entitled New Private Law.* As one of its introductory...
June 13, 2015
Harvard’s Project on the Foundations of Private Law has started an interesting blog entitled New Private Law.* As one of its introductory...
Game Theory: Creditors Tell Greece it is Time to Decide Over Bailout
June 12, 2015
Greece’s creditors on Thursday issued their starkest warnings to Athens since the start of a five-month stand-off over the country’s soon-to-expire €172bn bailout, with the International Monetary Fund withdrawing its negotiating team and European leaders saying the time for compromise had ended. “There’s no more space for gambling, there’s no more time for gambling. The day is coming, I’m afraid, where someone says the game is over.”
June 12, 2015
Greece’s creditors on Thursday issued their starkest warnings to Athens since the start of a five-month stand-off over the country’s soon-to-expire €172bn bailout, with the International Monetary Fund withdrawing its negotiating team and European leaders saying the time for compromise had ended. “There’s no more space for gambling, there’s no more time for gambling. The day is coming, I’m afraid, where someone says the game is over.”
