Weekend Reading, Watching, and Listening Recommendations (November 20, 2020)

The De-democratization of AI; The World Of Delivery Work in China; The Harvard Principles of Negotiation; Raj Chetty On Economic Mobility, Big Data, and Effective Public Policy

1. Read: The De-democratization of AI: Deep Learning and the Compute Divide in Artificial Intelligence Research [via Cornell University]

2. Read: The global scale, distribution and growth of aviation: Implications for climate

3. Read: A beautiful essay on the world of delivery work in China. "As iterative machine learning processes push for ever shorter delivery times...the riders have no choice but to violate systems of traffic control in an 'inverse algorithm'". This undermining of public safety is heralded as a "triumph of technology”, whose touted efficiency gains prove to be fragile with "a single weather event [being] enough to topple the algorithms". [via the Chuang. cn blog]

4. Listen: Harvard economist Raj Chetty believes that there’s a way to push past America’s political divide: data. In this episode of Sway, Mr. Chetty draws on data to answer questions like what age a person’s future has been largely determined (around 23), which ZIP codes provide the most economic opportunity (including some in rural Iowa), and what stands between a third-grader who will grow up to become an inventor and one who will not.

5. Listen: The Life Cycles Of Cities: Cities are never static; they can transform in months, years, or centuries. This hour, TED speakers explore how today's cities are informed by the past, and how they'll need to evolve for the future.

6. Watch: The Harvard Principles of Negotiation

7. Watch: Debate: Coronavirus Will Reshape the World Order in China's Favor