<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>Computers are writing novels - and getting better at it.</p>
<p>It probably won't help your "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/will-robots-take-our-jobs-2014-7?IR=T">robots are stealing our jobs</a>" fear. And it casts doubt on the idea that <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/if-you-earn-less-than-30k-a-robot-is-more-likely-to-steal-your-job-2014-11">creative professions are safer</a> than the administrative or processing professions. (<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-killer-robots-will-be-here-within-five-years-2014-11">Don't tell Elon Musk.) </a></p>
<p>Right now, in a play on a human literary contest, around a hundred people are writing computer programs that will write texts for them, <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/25/7276157/nanogenmo-robot-author-novel">the Verge says.</a> It's a response to November's <a href="http://nanowrimo.org/">National Novel Writing Month</a>, an annual challenge that gets people to finish a 50,000-word book on a deadline. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/25/7276157/nanogenmo-robot-author-novel">The Verge explains</a> the futuristic version was started by developer and artist Darius Kazemi, who encouraged creations made entirely by code. These computerised novels are becoming more sophisticated. </p>
<h3>A computer writes "True Love".</h3>
<p>One of the first computer-generated works of fiction was printed in 2008. <a href="http://www.sptimes.ru/story/24786">The St. Petersburg Times reported</a> at the time that "True Love", published by the Russia's SPb publishing company, was the work of a computer program and a team of IT specialists. <a href="http://www.sptimes.ru/story/24786">The paper says</a> the 320-page novel is a variation of Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina", but worded in the style of a Japanese author called Haruki Murakami. It hit Russian bookstores in the same year. Here is an extract:</p>
<p style="text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;">"Kitty couldn't fall asleep for a long time. Her nerves were strained as two tight strings, and even a glass of hot wine, that Vronsky made her drink, did not help her. Lying in bed she kept going over and over that monstrous scene at the meadow."</p>
<p>Two years ago <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/9764416.stm">the BBC noted</a> that Professor Philip Parker at the Insead Business School created software capable of generating more than 200,000 books. They cover topics like the amount of fat in fromage frais; there's even a Romanian crossword guide. But the research, ultimately, was designed to help the publishing process and looks at the likes of corrections and composition. <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The books simply </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">compile existing information and create new predictions using formulas. Still, they led to Professor Parker experimenting with software that might one day actually automate fiction. </span></p>
<h3>The question is: will these AI books fool humans? </h3>
<p>Alan Turing, currently a hot topic <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/benedict-cumberland-artificial-intelligence-2014-11?r=US">due to the new Benedict Cumberbatch film of his life</a>, asked in 1950, "can machines think?" It's his test that is the real basis for determining whether AI has reached new bounds - the point where computers might <em>actually </em>take over.</p>
<p>He looked at literature specifically. <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Turing's literary test for computer generated fiction is this:</span></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Soft test</strong> - Human readers can't tell it's not human generated.</li>
<li><strong>Hard test</strong> - Human readers not only can't tell it's not human generated, but they'll actually purchase it.</li>
</ul>
<h3><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/9764416.stm">In a study into the process</a>, the BBC pitched a computerised poem against one penned by poet Luke Write: </h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>It's likely you can tell which was constructed by a machine (the top one). But it's not completely obvious, which is a bit scary. </p>
<p><span style="line-height: 22.5px;">As <a href="http://futureperfectpublishing.com/2007/10/16/can-a-computer-write-a-novel/">Future Perfect Publishing remarks though,</a> neither of Turing's have yet been wholly passed. It points out that, while AI is evolving, it's not quite ready to perform "linguistic processing capability"; definitely not without human coding and drawing on established text to mash text together into new algorithms or sequences.</span></p>
<h3>The other and the clay sighed for something of red."</h3>
<p><span style="line-height: 22.5px;">However, when you read something like "Irritant" by Darby Larson, it highlights the fact that things are moving forward. Larson's project, <a href="http://www.vice.com/read/if-you-build-the-code-your-computer-will-write-the-novel">reports Vice</a>, "takes the utilisation of computer-generated speech to the next level." It consists of a 624-page paragraph and is made of sentences that "morph and mangle" together. While it's not yet a fully-formed piece of fiction, it edges closer to the necessary creative aspect of producing an interesting work of literary art. </span>Here's an extract:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="line-height: 22.5px;"><span>"The man in front of the truck trampled from front to back safe from the blue. And all this while the man scooped shovels of dirt and trampled from front to back front to back. The other and the clay sighed for something of red. The irritant lay in something of red and laughed."</span></span></p>
<h3>The "breakout" computer novel of 2013.</h3>
<p>Indeed, 2013 was a big year for AI novels. <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/25/7276157/nanogenmo-robot-author-novel">The Verge reports Nick Montfort's "World Clock"</a> was "the breakout hit of last year". He's a professor of digital media at MIT, and used lines of a code to arrange characters, locations, and actions to construct his work. It was printed by Havard Books. Here's the opening from Montfort's website preview:</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>It's not bad, but it's unlikely anyone would go out and buy the book for literary appreciation over curiosity. We'll check out 2014's AI novels when they're released.</p>

Computers Are Writing Novels: Read A Few Samples Here

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Carl Court/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">A woman waves a life jacket to direct a migrant boat ashore as it makes the crossing from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos on November 12, 2015 in Sikaminias, Greece.</p></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Good morning! Here are the 10 things you need to know in markets on Friday.</span></p><p><strong>European GDP figures are coming.</strong> Country-by-country figures for third quarter growth are rolling in all morning, before Eurozone-wide stats at 10.00 a.m. GMT (5.00 a.m. ET). Economists are predicting growth of 1.7% on last year's figure and 0.4% on the second quarter.</p><p><strong>2 charts show just how important China's stock market is to economic growth. </strong>Tertiary industries - the service sector - blossomed in China in the third quarter, contributing a whopping 4 percentage points to GDP and around 58% of all economic growth. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/if-people-say-chinas-stock-market-doesnt-matter-show-them-these-two-charts-2015-11">Financial services were the biggest driver within this</a>.</p><p><strong>Asian markets are down.</strong> Japan's Nikkei is down 0.51% at time of writing (6.40 a.m. GMT/1.40 a.m. ET), Hong Kong's Hang Seng is down 2.50%, and the Shanghai Composite is down 0.95%.</p><p><strong>Shares in troubled mining giant Glencore tumbled more than 6% in morning trade in Hong Kong on Friday after a rout in London.</strong> Investors are <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-glencore-shares-tumble-in-hong-kong-after-london-plunge-2015-11?IR=T">spooked by the continued sell-off in metals</a>. The losses come as the Switzerland-based company Glencore struggles under the weight of tens-of-billions-of-dollars in debt with a global rout in commodities prices hitting its bottom line.</p><p><strong>The video streaming site Hulu is in talks to sell a portion of itself to Time Warner that would value the company in the range of $5 billion (£3.3 billion) to $6 billion (£3.9 billion), The Wall Street Journal reports. </strong>The deal would give Time Warner the same shareholding as Hulu's current owners -Disney, Comcast, and Fox - and <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/hulu-may-sell-to-time-warner-for-5-billion-2015-11">give each a 25% stake of Hulu</a>, the report said.</p><p><strong> Syngenta AG has rejected ChemChina's offer to buy the Swiss agricultural chemicals group in a deal valued at about $42 billion (£27.6 billion), citing regulatory concerns, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.</strong> The offer follows <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-syngenta-rejects-chemchinas-42-billion-takeover-offer-bloomberg-2015-11">a similarly priced bid from Monsanto that was withdrawn after Syngenta dismissed it as too low</a>.</p><p><strong>Watchmaker Fossil Group has agreed to acquire startup Misfit, a maker of wearable fitness trackers, for $260 million (£170.9 million), <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2015/11/12/fossil-group-to-buy-misfit-for-260-million/">the Wall Street Journal reports</a>. </strong>Sonny Vu, chief executive and co-founder of Misfit, will become president and chief technology officer of connected devices for Fossil Group.</p><div class="firstPar"><p><strong>As many as 15 million jobs are under threat of replacement by smart machines, the Bank of England's chief economist has warned.</strong> <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/bank-of-england/11991704/Half-of-all-British-jobs-could-be-replaced-by-robots-warns-Bank-of-Englands-chief-economist.html">The Telegraph</a> reports that Andy Haldane said a new generation of increasingly creative robots could replace "at risk" jobs over the next 20 years, such as those held by accountants and sales people.</p></div><p><strong>Goldman Sachs has promoted 425 people to managing director, making it the firm's largest class ever.</strong> It's a <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/goldman-managing-director-list-2015-11">big deal to be named a managing director</a>. The title is one step below partner, one of the most highly coveted titles in investment banking.</p><p><strong>Turing Pharmaceuticals, the US company that hit the headlines for gouging the price of a HIV treatment drug by 5,000%, made a big loss in the third quarter. </strong>For the quarter ending September 30, the company posted a $14.6 million (£9.6 million) net loss. Those three months cover the time that Turing acquired the US marketing rights to drug Daraprim.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/most-interesting-men-world-watches-rolex-breitling-jorg-gray-2015-8">These are the watches worn by the smartest and most powerful men in the world</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="N3NGJ0djpb_DdQzkXVopAvbq5AmmiuOx" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

10 things you need to know in markets today

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Artificial Intelligence has fascinated filmmakers as far back as the 1920s with Fritz Lang's dazzling "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Metropolis.</a>" Recently, AI has found its way more frequently into movies.</span></p><p>Look at "Her," "Big Hero 6," "Chappie," and the upcoming "Avengers: Age of Ultron," and it seems there's no limit to how storytelling can implement our curiosity towards soulless devices programed to have all the (good and bad) traits of humans.</p><p>So when screenwriter Alex Garland ("28 Days Later," "Dredd") decided to examine this fertile ground with his directorial debut, "Ex Machina," he knew his AI had to be different.</p><p>The film follows a young programmer named Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) who wins a contest to meet Nathan (Oscar Isaac), the famous CEO of the Google-like company where he's employed. After a helicopter leaves Caleb on Nathan's secluded compound, he learns that Nathan has created an AI and wants him to conduct the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test">Turing test</a> on it; which determins whether it can pass as a human. </p><p>The AI is named Ava, and though there's no mistaking she's a robot with her visible metal skeletal structure and exposed inner workings, newcomer <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2539953/?ref_=tt_cl_t4">Alicia Vikander</a> gives her such an emotional presence that at times Ava comes across as a living, breathing human.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The physical presence of Ava was something Garland took a lot of thought in. The challenge he saw was not just making Ava look more robotic than humans but also create a fresh robotic look to present to movie audiences.</span></p><p>"There was this huge danger the first time Ava walks onto the screen that the first thing you do is think about another movie," said Garland.</p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In creating </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-machina-ava-concept-art-2015-4">concept art</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> with UK artist Jock, Garland pushed aside any iconic look that would make you think of another movie bot. They couldn't use a gold color because it brought up too many recollections of C-3PO from the "Star Wars" saga. They also decided not to use white as it made them think of the robot in Björk's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjI2J2SQ528">music video</a> for "All is Full of Love" or the robots from Will Smith's 2004 movie "I, Robot."</span></span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Finally they landed on mesh, and it just fit.</span></span></span></p><p>"Under certain lighting conditions it would give a kind of glimpse of the female form but almost drew your attention to the machine's skeleton structure inside Ava," said Garland.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"I looked like Spider-Man," said Vikander, who spent four-and-a-half hours in hair and makeup before each shooting day to become Ava.</span></p><p>"The silver mesh covered my whole body and went up to a ball cap. So my forehead in the film was actually built into the suit," she tells BI. "I would get there at 3:50am, so they built for me a little stick with a tennis ball at the end, because I couldn't have a headrest. So when they finished getting my hair and forehead all made up I would prop my head on that and went back to sleep while they did the rest."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Though Garland feels there's more to the film than just AI - specifically, the control major technology companies have on our daily lives - he knew that Ava needed to be that bridge to take you deeper into the story, and for it to work she had to look unique. <span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><br /></span></p><p>"You need to be locked into the same experience Caleb [the main character] is having," Garland explains. "Anything else takes you out of the moment you should be in."</p><p>"Ex Machina" is now open in limited release and will be out nationwide April 24.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hbo-going-clear-scientology-prison-of-belief-documentary-tom-cruise-trailer-2015-2">This Scientology documentary made HBO hire 160 lawyers - here's the trailer </a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="o5dzJpczpndV8YG9M7cnoa3JXgQXBqja" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Why Artificial Intelligence in movies has been elevated thanks to this sci-fi must-see

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="A24" title_caption="Ava, the robot at the center of " ex="" machina="" could="" easily="" pass="" for="" human.="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/552c17a6ecad04c4374eabf1-960/ex-machina-5.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></div><p></p></div></div><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The problem with films about robots is that they sometimes get, well, robotic, and leave emotions at the door. "Ex Machina" focuses on its human characters as much as its central robot Ava (Alicia Vikander), who seems to have more of a conscious than the actual people that surround her.&#xa0;</span></span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Unlike other onscreen robots, Ava may have a lot to learn, but she is both intelligent and curious from the start. That is partially what makes her so compelling to watch: she seems to have a lot of knowledge, but no idea how to apply it when trying to act like a human.&#xa0;</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">At the film's start, Nathan tells Caleb to conduct a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test">Turing test</a> on Ava to see how much her mind resembles that of a human. As an audience member, you'll forget at times you're watching a machine. If you're into two-fold psychological mind games, then "Ex Machina" is for you.</span></p><p>As the mad, yet brilliant Nathan, Oscar Isaac proves why he's one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood today. Living in an isolated mansion filled with expensive toys, artifacts, and people who will always bend to his will, Isaac plays Nathan like Bruce Wayne meets Colonel Kurtz, with a dash of Steve Jobs. (by that i mean) He's a well-read, paranoid man with a lot of money who thinks he is saving the world.&#xa0;<strong><br /></strong></p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>While Nathan may be reclusive, he is far from introverted.<p>Isaac and Gleeson share a consistently entertaining back-and-forth throughout the film. For most of the film, watching the two of them is like watching two friends have a discussion over a couple of beers. Luckily, we can all look forward to Isaac and Gleeson together again later this year in a high profile sci-fi film that you might have heard of: "Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens."</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"Ex Machina" mixes philosophical questions with scientific intrigue. This is the kind of film where knowledge of the Bible and&#xa0;</span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470752/trivia?item=tr2275403">Greek tragedies</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#xa0;aren't necessary, but are definitely an added bonus. This is a philosophy lesson that is filled with absurdity, like a hilarious disco scene that comes out of nowhere.</span><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The film feels like a sequel to Spike Jonze's Oscar-winning "Her," which is about a man who falls in love with his human-like operating system, and a huge step forward in science-fiction for Hollywood. </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Rather, "Ex Machina" accurately portrays a robot that is created by us for us. Ava is somebody who could be our friend and blend in with the rest of human society.</span></p><p>This is what makes "Ex Machina" so interesting. This is a world where the humans, and not the robots with limitless capabilities, are the villains. It is an idea that "Chappie" tried (and somewhat failed) to communicate earlier this year. Garland said that he wanted this film to feel like it could take place <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470752/trivia?item=tr2358967">10 minutes from now</a>. This whole film feels like an idea Tim Cook might briefly mention during the next iPhone press conference.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This is thanks in part to Garland, who, despite never having directed a feature film before, might as well be a seasoned veteran at this point. Switching between glowing red and blue, stunning mountain vistas and claustrophobic white hallways, this is the sort of plunge into madness that would make the likes of Stanley Kubrick proud.</span><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#xa0;</strong></p><p>Anybody who is a fan of "A Clockwork Orange" and "The Shining" will feel right at home with Garland's sense of paranoia and claustrophobia. There are a lot of scenes here that feel like they were put in here just for cinephiles. But just like the philosophy, you don't need to have seen every dystopian film to enjoy this one.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The world of "Ex Machina" is both minimalist and incredibly detailed and well-thought out. "Ex Machina" works well on its own, but I almost wouldn't mind seeing a sequel for it. There just seems to be infinite possibilities for where Ava can go from here.</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#xa0;</span></p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"></span><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The future that is presented in "Ex Machina" can sometimes be a frightening place, but it is also overstuffed with ideas and possibilities. Garland has gone on the record as believing that it is a </span><a href="http://www.thewrap.com/ex-machina-director-alex-garland-on-whether-a-i-is-a-good-or-bad-thing-exclusive-video/">"good thing"</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that robots might surpass humans. This explains why he is able to strike a rare balance of being cynical about the selfish nature of people, yet still optimistic about where this planet is heading.</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">If the creation of Ava is a distinct possibility, then I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.</span></span></span></p><p>Watch the trailer for "Ex Machina" here:&#xa0;</p><div><div></div></div>

This brilliant sci-fi film is one of the best movies you'll see all year

<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/digital-industry-insider"></a></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">A jet engine is seen as engineers work on the carbon-fibre body of the Bloodhound SSC vehicle currently taking shape at its design centre in Avonmouth on March 5, 2015 in Bristol, England. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)</p></div><p></p></div></div>From the Industrial Revolution to the age of the assembly line, and now in the emergence of today's digital and 3D printing technologies, the manufacturing industry has always been an incubator for ingenuity.</p><p>Companies all over the world are grappling with how to integrate digital capabilities into their operations. In manufacturing, we are chiefly concerned with how to maximize productivity during a time where hardware is merging with software. We see four main drivers of productivity that are changing the way we design, manufacture and service products.</p><p><strong>1. Lean manufacturing</strong></p><p>This is the effort to fold waste reduction principles into every aspect of the manufacturing process and strive for continuous improvements. This was a central tenet of the Toyota Production System, where the goal was to maximize employee engagement and customer value.</p><p><strong>2. Advanced manufacturing</strong></p><p>These techniques include the use of laser-guided cutting tools robotics, cobots, exoskeleton technology and automation. Some of these technologies are commonplace now in consumer applications. While lasers are used in everything from light shows to hair removal in salons, they are just now realizing their full potential in industrial<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>(AP Photo/Jens Meyer)</span></p><p class="caption">People stand behind a 3D printed model for medical purposes at the stand of the US company Stratasys during the international fairs FabCon 3.D and Rapid.Tech in Erfurt, Germany, June 14, 2016. Exhibitors present the latest products and applications in the fields of additive manufacturing and 3D printing.</p></div><p></p></div></div>manufacturing, improving costs and creating a more ergonomic workplace.</p><p><strong>3. Additive manufacturing</strong></p><p>Also known as 3D printing, additive technologies provide precision and efficiency to a degree previously unheard of and create parts that were impossible to produce. These advancements will swing the pendulum back to U.S. domestic sourcing.</p><p><strong>4. Digital maturity</strong></p><p>The integration of hardware and software is changing the way products are conceived, produced and installed - what the industry calls the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We can now embed sensors onto our machines, leverage software to gather data and use those insights and analytics to ultimately drive greater productivity. At GE, we call this the digital thread, because we weave digital capabilities horizontally through our facilities and vertically through our value chain, all enabled by Predix, the industrial cloud-based platform.</p><p>These pillars of manufacturing are not theoretical. At a GE Aviation facility in Auburn, Ala., there are 30 3D printers manufacturing fuel nozzles for jet engines-the first 3D-printed part ever approved by the FAA to fly in a commercial jet. At a GE Transportation facility in Grove City, Penn., we've seen a 10 to 20 percent reduction in unplanned downtime. And in Florence, Italy, equipping machines with sensors has identified optimum times for maintenance with minimum disruption to production and even add an entire production line without adding a new shift.</p><p>This vision is what we call the Brilliant Factory, and we are realizing this vision in our factories around the world. A select handful of our factories are already fitted with digital capabilities and additive and advanced manufacturing technologies and are realizing productivity gains as a result.</p><p>Manufacturing today is leaps and bounds from what the industry looked like 50 or even 10 years ago. And this has implications for the American economy and workers with ripple effects that span the world. Advanced manufacturing industries account for 24 million jobs-13 percent of all American jobs-and each of those jobs supports another 3.5 jobs throughout the supply chain. These impacts are all the more significant when you consider that we are in an age of protectionism worldwide, and companies like GE that once relied heavily on globalization strategies are now forced to localize quickly in order to maintain sustainable growth.</p><p>There will continue to be manufacturing jobs available, but the job descriptions will look different. In a highly interconnected ecosystem, it is critical for industry to join forces with local government and academia to build this pipeline of workers with the skills they need to be competitive and work in tomorrow's factories.</p><p>Working with the Department of Education, GE will soon offer an accel­er­ated Bach­elor of Sci­ence in Advanced Man­u­fac­turing pro­gram in conjunction with Northeastern University in Boston. The pro­gram, which is expected to launch this spring, is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation. We also are a founding member of Carnegie Mellon's new additive manufacturing research consortium. This is only the start of a journey. As an industry, we need to do more. We see a future where factories are fitted with valuable technologies across the supply chain, managed by highly skilled workers earning good wages that are the backbone of the American economy.<br /> </p><p><em>Philippe Cochet is GE's Chief Productivity Officer. This article originally appeared on <a href="http://www.gereports.com/assembly-line-digital-thread-factory-future-stay/">GE Reports</a>.</em></p>

The factory of the future is here, touching 24 million American jobs

The father of virtual reality sounds off on the changing culture of Silicon Valley, the impending #MeToo backlash, and why he left Google for Microsoft

<p></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">We gave our </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/satoshi-nakamoto-person-of-the-year-2013-12">Person of the Year award</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> for 2013 to Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin.</span></p>
<p>We know some of you laughed. </p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>If you did, you may want to read on. It's becoming increasingly clear that Satoshi's creation has the potential to change how much of commerce itself works, and for reasons not even many Bitcoin fans realize.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">By many accounts, Satoshi came up with a real-world solution to an actual, longstanding computer science paradox, known as the double-spend problem, or the <strong>Byzantine General's problem</strong> (<a href="http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/lamport/pubs/pubs.html#byz">the professor who named it thus explains why he did so here</a>). The dilemma is how to send and receive money online without the need for a trusted third party, like PayPal, ensuring that the same digital credit standing in for the amount being exchanged isn't being spent twice. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In the real world, this problem gets avoided with cash, which is quite difficult to counterfeit. In practice, digital counterfeiting is much easier. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Satoshi's solution was what has become known as the blockchain: a ledger of all transactions owned and monitored by everyone but ultimately controlled by none. It's like a giant interactive spreadsheet everyone has access to and updates to confirm each digital credit is unique. </span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It is this technology that programmers are now working to deploy for uses that go far beyond Bitcoin. </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"></span></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Ironically, Satoshi does not appear to have been looking to solve this problem when he created Bitcoin. But his design for the blockchain, </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"></span><a href="bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf">which he spelled out in his 2008 Bitcoin spec paper</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, has profound implications.</span></p>
<p><span>"For the first time, two people can exchange a piece of digital property, without any prior relationship, and in a secure way, over the Internet," <span>Jeff Garzik, one of Bitcoin's core developers now employed by payment processor BitPay, told BI</span></span><span style="color: #000000;">. </span><span style="color: #000000; line-height: 1.5em;">"As a computer scientist, and in computer science in general, when you talked about building distributed systems, there tended to be a purely theoretical view about how computers would talk to each other, how to keep them coordinated. </span><span style="color: #000000; line-height: 1.5em;">Satoshi and the blockchain really solved that problem in an elegant and unexpected way.</span></p>

<p><span style="color: #000000; line-height: 1.5em;">"I don't think the computer science community has really caught up yet."</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The breakthrough means that theoretically any act of commerce on the web can be decentralized and stripped of a controlling authority. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Perhaps the most straightforward example of a post-Bitcoin service currently using Satoshi's blockchain is called <a href="http://www.proofofexistence.com">Proof Of Existence</a>. Created by </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Manuel Araoz, a 23-year-old developer in Argentina, the site allows you to upload a file to certify that you had custody of it</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> at a given time. Neither its contents, nor your own personal information are ever revealed - rather, all the data in the document gets digested into an encrypted number. Proof Of Existence is actually built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, (there's a 0.005 BTC fee), so <a href="https://getaddr.bitnodes.io/">the thousands of computers on that network</a> have now collectively verified your file.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Proof Of Existence</span></p></div><p></p></div><br /></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">A slightly more politicized application of the blockchain is Namecoin. Currently, international non-profit ICANN governs nearly all top-level web address domains, like .com. But three years ago, engineers developed something called </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Namecoin that serves as a new domain name system for registering web addresses that end in .bit. In this case, instead of ICANN controlling the domain name system, you and all the other people in the Namecoin system control the domain names. Again, blockchain technology makes it so that something which previously required a centralized authority can now be managed via community. </span></p>
<p><span>At this point, payment processors like Western Union probably have the most to fear from blockchain competition, according to </span><span>Gil Luria, a managing director at Wedbush Securities covering financial technology. You may have heard this before, but Luria explained why the blockchain is the true threat: </span><span>Most processors currently use hub-and-spoke models, he said, which are able to charge fees for crossing jurisdictions, and for smaller transaction amounts.  Decentralizing and distributing the network gets rid of all that.</span></p>
<p>"It's a much more competitive business model," Luria told us by phone recently. "Instead of paying 5 to 10% in fees to Western Union, you're going to be 2 to 3%, possibly even less.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Rob Wile/Paul Baran</span></p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">A startup called Ripple represents the most active threat to the mega processors. </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ripple-profile-2014-3">We profiled Ripple, and the group that created it, last month</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">. </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Computers all familiar with each other on Ripple's network mutually agree on changes to its blockchain (Ripple calls it a ledger). This allows transactions to be processed instantly, and without a third party. It's actually even faster than the Bitcoin network, because everyone using the Ripple ledger gets their own copy of the whole ledger, in contrast with the nodes on the Bitcoin network all sharing a single one. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>The blockchain is even stalking credit card companies: In an interview in </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-completely-debunks-all-the-arguments-for-bitcoin-2014-3">Goldman Sachs' note on Bitcoin last March</a><span>, Fred Ehrsam, the CEO of mega Bitcoin payment processor Coinbase, observed that a Bitcoin-like payment network would solve the problem of having your credit card info stored with a big box retailer like Target. Even sending money through Venmo, the app that lets you text your friends for picking up dinner that one time, still takes five days to clear.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span>Of course, it's possible the existing financial behemoths could adopt their own blockchain technologies. In the same Goldman note, Goldman information technology services analyst Roman Leal writes that, "just as a flurry of new entrants - such as Square, Groupon, and PayPal - encouraged payment networks and payment processors to develop a mobile payments strategy, we expect traditional payment players to develop digital currency strategies." </span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Two groups, </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">BitShares and Ethereum, are hoping to blockchain-ify...everything. <span>BitShares founder and CEO Daniel Larimer has his eye on</span> <a href="http://bitshares.org/exchange/">stock exchanges</a>, <a href="http://bitshares.org/voting/">voting</a>, <a href="http://bitshares.org/music/">music distribution</a>, and on<span>.</span> He calls such futuristic entities distributed autonomous corporations. To use the music example, Larimer envisions artists having the ability to issue shares in their own songs, incentivizing fans to spread the tune far and wide to increase returns. </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em; font-size: 15px;">"We give power to shareholders without centralizing in any way, because we've eliminated the barriers to entry for starting a company," Larimer <span>told us at the "Inside Bitcoins" conference recently.</span> </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em; font-size: 15px;">Incidentally, he said having a conference called "Inside Bitcoins" was akin to having a conference called "Inside AltaVista." </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em; font-size: 15px;">There are of course loads of technological and regulatory hurdles that must still be overcome for all of this to materialize. And there are plenty of things that could be reset on a blockchain. But investors don't seem too concerned: <span>Marc Andreessen (who also invests in Business Insider) and Fred Wilson are betting big in this space.</span></span></p>

<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span>In a recent blog post, Wilson </span><a href="http://avc.com/2014/04/the-mobile-downturn/">equated</a><span> the breakthrough Blockchain represents to the web browser and social media. He specifically refers to this moment as the "blockchain cycle."</span></span></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>Our 2004 fund was built during social. Our 2008 fund was built during social and the emergence of mobile. Our 2012 fund was built during the mobile downturn. And our 2014 fund will be built during the blockchain cycle. I am looking forward to it.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">I think we see every week now somewhere between one and three entrepreneurs come in with blockchain ideas," Andreessen Horowitz's Chris Dixon told BI. "There's definitely some momentum behind it."</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">We'll leave you with an extremely futuristic example of how the blockchain could be deployed. </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu4PAMFPo5Y&amp;feature=youtu.be">In a talk given last fall at the Turing festival</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, Mike Hearn, a former Google employee who quit his job to work full-time on Bitcoin, laid out this scenario: A 20-something Scottish girl named Jen wants to meet up with her friends downtown. She doesn't own a car - no one does in the future - so she dials up a cab through a network Hearn calls TradeNet. </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu4PAMFPo5Y&amp;feature=youtu.be">Youtube</a></span></p><p class="caption">Mike Hearn at the Turing Festival</p></div><p></p></div></div>Jen's request acts as a request-for-bid on TradeNet, and all the robot cabs available start automatically posting offers, like on an exchange. Jen's node then ranks the bids and presents them to Jen based on criteria including price but also things like whether she's used that cab before, and what other people have said about it. All of this is done on a distributed, blockchain system, so no centralized taxi company needs to manage the orders.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The blockchain, by the way, will have improved that recommendation process, Hearn says. Currently many recommendation systems at places like Yelp or Seamless say they use your social network to help you choose services. In practice, they end up producing what amount to spam reviews, since it's unlikely a friend you trust will have reviewed the same service you're looking into. Hearn says cryptography - without which Bitcoin couldn't exist - has helped reduce spam by providing more authoritative, useful authentication.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In this future scenario, the roads on which Jen is driving will have also become autonomous actors, doing trades with the car on TradeNet. They can submit bids to the car about how much they're going to charge to use them. If she's in a hurry, Jen can choose a road that's a bit more expensive but which will allow her to get into the city faster. </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Awesome, right? </span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"This is possible because of Bitcoin," Hearn says. "B</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">itcoin has no intermediaries, therefore there's really nothing to stop a computer from just connecting to the internet and taking part all by itself. All you need to do to instantiate a Bitcoin wallet is generate a large random number." </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Hearn gives other examples of where the TradeNet could be deployed, like buying fruit and vegetables, or units of computation time if you're buying clouds services. Any transactions that are fast, lightweight and commoditized - which the current system, Hearn says is bad at - could be done so much better on the Blockchain.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The entirety of Hearn's talk is pretty amazing, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu4PAMFPo5Y&amp;feature=youtu.be">and we recommend you watch it</a></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em; font-size: 15px;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">With a handful of exceptions like Proof Of Existence, it's still too early to see fully functional applications of blockchain technology. Ripple, for instance, is still courting financial institutions that would benefit from using its payment rail. Bitcoin's main developers are </span><a href="http://letstalkbitcoin.com/blockchain-2-0-let-a-thousand-chains-blossom/#.U0vVC-Zg6Go">still figuring out ways to tweak its protocol without bringing down the entire network.</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> And of course there remain a host of outstanding regulatory issues that will need to get sorted out before massive expansion of these proposed services can occur.</span></p>
<p>The blockchain helps end the debate about what Bitcoin is. Previously there's been discussion about whether Bitcoin is a currency, or commodity, or technological protocol. There are good arguments for each categorization, but each is unsatisfying in some way.</p>
<p>Now we know why this debate is so unsatisfying. Bitcoin represents a novel form of organization - a blockchain-based enitity - that's not quite like anything seen before it.</p>

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