In their recent book ‘Power and Progress’ Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson analyse technological progress over the course of human history. They conclude that technological advances tend to initially benefit a fairly narrow elite before countervailing societal pressures and political developments result in a fairer distribution of the benefits of this progress. Their survey of…

Ms Machimdhorn Khampiranont (“MA”) is the Acting Managing Director of Thailand Arbitration Center (“THAC”), which has been set up to support and provide neutral and independent alternative dispute resolution services of international standards. Prior to holding the present position as THAC’s Acting Managing Director, MA was initially appointed as THAC’s Registrar and subsequently became the…

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players” In his ‘untold history’ – “The Earth Transformed” Peter Frankopan charts the way in which the natural environment has shaped human history and more recently how humankind has in turn begun to influence the natural environment. In his conclusion he builds on…

Repetition works. It is a passive, effective tool of persuasion. It features heavily in the online marketing of programs for business leaders and, (as I am reminded as I endure another round of  parliamentary elections in my country) in the fear-inducing speeches of politicians desperate to avoid an election loss. A Google search of ‘The…

Neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow’s latest book ‘Joined-up Thinking – The science of collective intelligence’ makes the case that the range and complexity of the challenges that face us a  species require an even greater focus on working together to harness our intelligence in its broadest sense. She argues that even though our success as a species…

At a recent Global Ethical Finance Initiative event Katherine Trebeck of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance discussed her book ‘The Economics of Arrival’. The book explores the contribution of economic growth to wellbeing, particularly in the context of developed economies who could be considered to have ‘arrived’. It makes the argument that beyond a certain threshold,…

In the famous story of Noah’s Ark, Noah questions God about how he will find the animals he has been instructed to put in the ark. God replies, ‘If you build it, they will come’. The consistent repetition of this quotation throughout history (think of Kevin Costner’s movie Field of Dreams ) has created something…

Mediators work hard to help parties to a dispute to explore and understand their underlying needs and interests, which might have been forgotten or overlooked in the defence of a position that was once adopted to promote their interests. A recent book by political scientist Krzysztof Pelc ‘Beyond Self-interest – why the market rewards those…

‘Entangled Life’ by Merlin Sheldrake is a fascinating look into the role that fungi play in making the natural world what it is. From the impact on humans to the symbiotic relationship between mycorrhizal fungi and trees. The relationship between humans, plants and fungi is also the focus of the Welcome Collection’s current exhibition ‘Rooted…

Most people’s experience of artificial intelligence (AI) is limited to interacting with a chat bot on their bank’s website. These bots are unimpressive, dispensing trivial and mostly unhelpful answers. Don’t be misled into thinking that unhelpful chat bots represent the state of the art in AI, though. The cutting edge of AI research has moved…