#john gapper

[usunezukoinezu]

‘‘But ChatGPT is also like some people I know: it can turn sketchy information into fluent and convincing answers. It sounds right even when it is making things up on the basis of something it read somewhere, which was itself regurgitated from other sources. Its smooth, articulate voice is usually persuasive, but cannot be relied on fully.’’

‘‘The danger is that ChatGPT and other AI agents create a technology version of Gresham’s Law on the adulteration of 16th century coinage, that “bad money drives out good”. If an unreliable linguistic mash-up is freely accessible, while original research is costly and laborious, the former will thrive.

...“The primary problem is that while the answers which [it] produces have a high rate of being incorrect, they typically look like they might be good...” ...it must be deployed carefully, and there’s the rub. ChatGPT is like an urbane, overconfident version of Wikipedia or Google search: useful as a starting point but not for complete answers. It too closely corresponds to the journalist Nicholas Tomalin’s summary of the essential qualities for his job: “Ratlike cunning, a plausible manner and a little literary ability.” ’’

- John Gapper

[parkparadigm]

"The core business of matching buyers and sellers is not very profitable and does not have great prospects." Being a stock exchange was fine while entry barriers were high and they could shield themselves from competition. As soon as that was undermined, particularly in the US, they became vulnerable.

The death and rebirth of the stock exchange - FT.com

Good synopsis of why I don’t get excited by exchanges. Disrupting a crappy business is unlikely to deliver big returns. Now clearing, that’s another story...

[leninsbody]

YouTube can shoulder progress on piracy

YouTube can shoulder progress on piracy

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Music labels will probably re-sign with the devil they know while lobbying for changes in the law

©James Ferguson

Every day we receive a fresh reminder of the unprecedented power and reach of US internet and consumer technology companies. Alphabet’s Google, Facebook, Amazon and Applecan affect the lives of millions by launching services or tweaking the algorithms that decide where…

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[socialstudiesmidway-blog]

YouTube can shoulder progress on piracy

YouTube can shoulder progress on piracy

[ad_1] Music labels will probably re-sign with the devil they know while lobbying for changes in the law ©James Ferguson Every day we receive a fresh reminder of the unprecedented power and reach of US internet and consumer technology companies. Alphabet’s Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple can affect the lives of millions by launching services or tweaking the algorithms that decide where…

View On WordPress

[brianjohnspencer]

“The movement is filled with inconsistencies. The Guardian is supported by a £650m oil-related endowment from its former stake in Auto Trader magazine. The US Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which backs divestment, was endowed by oil wealth. Dividends from oil and gas companies boost Harvard’s $36bn endowment, which has helped to educate the protesters.

Everyone is allowed a little hypocrisy but the difficulty runs deeper than that. Harvard as noted by Drew Faust, its president, has “a pervasive dependence” on fossil energy to heat and light buildings, fuel transport and run computers. Yet the campaigners would be content if it sold shares in energy companies while continuing to use their products. This makes little sense.”

- John Gapper, ‘Fossil fuel campaigners play charades’, Financial Times

[brianjohnspencer]

“Discrimination tends to be curbed by the market because it is irrational”

John Gapper wrote in the Financial Times:

“Friedman was essentially right in his book Capitalism and Freedom that the discrimination tends to be curbed by the market because it is irrational — it introduces unnecessary costs, giving a company that is colour or gender-blind an edge. “Those of us who regard colour of skin as irrelevant can buy some things more cheaply,” Friedman wrote, with his customary detachment.

He drew on The Economics of Discrimination, the 1957 book by the Nobel-winning economist Gary Becker. As Catherine Rampell noted in the Washington Post, Becker found that prejudice imposes costs on discriminators as well as those discriminated against. Prejudice tends to linger in closed institutions such as churches, while being driven out by competition.”

[parkparadigm]

Meanwhile, we are stuck with 20th-century arrangements for providing work benefits and insurance — one of the hallmarks of the advanced industrial society — that do not fit the 21st-century worker.

The sharing economy must share the risks - FT.com John Gapper highlighting the classic Perez-ian institutional lag. It behooves us to try to fix this fast but history tells us it usually takes a generation or two dying off to effect real institutional change, and the baby boomers aren't looking ready to go just yet...

[hackingfinance]

There is no doubt that the infrastructure of retail banks is antiquated, and is built in a way that invites competition from peer-to-peer networks. Nor is there a doubt that banks make themselves vulnerable by how they price – offering core deposit services cheaply or free while squeezing customers on ancillary products such as overdrafts and currency exchange.

Technology will hurt the banks, not kill them - FT.com The banks need to adapt. Those that don't will surely rust away. But there is a win-win opportunity for those that do "unbundle", re-invent their business models and partner with, invest in and acquire great start ups that complement their core strengths.