Artificial Intelligence – Our Final Invention?

Robots and artificial intelligence have always played a prominent role in science fiction. Memorable characters include HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Marvin the paranoid android from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But is it just science fiction? Could we actually succeed in creating artificial general intelligence?

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The Art of Sitting on Your Hands

2016 has started roughly for stocks all around the world. The chaos in China spread quickly to other continents and demonstrated brutally how interconnected the global markets are today. Oil is crashing to new lows and is currently trading close to $30. The S&P500 index had its worst-ever first week and went down roughly 10% from autumn highs. The noise is getting louder and louder and stock market investors are faced with a dilemma: should I sell everything or just sit on my hands and keep it cool.

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Who buys a 10.000€ handbag?

Every now and then I walk around in downtown Milan for some serious window shopping. It’s fun because the things on display are often outrageous both in design and price. It’s also entertaining to look at the people who are genuinely interested in luxury and high fashion – and actually able to buy it. You also get a reminder of how important the luxury and fashion business is for Italy.

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Where to expect blood if low oil prices are here to stay?

Unless you’ve been living on a desert island for the past 12 months you’ve heard a lot of talk about falling oil prices. Since summer 2014 the drop has been significant and nobody knows how this will continue. If oil prices remain low for a long period, it’s clear that many countries dependent on oil exports will hurt. In some countries you might even see civil unrest and outright chaos. 

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