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Before we knew the astronomical phenomenon that eclipses were, most cultures had their own explanations for them. In a weird twist of fate, however, these stories often ended up as a celestial buffet for some mythical creature or another — leading to these cultures considering the event as a bad omen. For instance, the Sun is eaten by a demon in Hinduism, a dragon in ancient Chinese cultures, and a wolf according to Norse mythology. Now, imagine telling all these anxiety-struck people that we were planning to artificially induce an eclipse.<br /><br />The European <keyword id="41531" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="space" source="Orion">Space</keyword> Agency (<keyword id="191401" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="esa" source="Orion">ESA</keyword>) is set to embark on an unprecedented mission this autumn: the launch of Proba-3, the world's first man-made eclipse machine. This revolutionary project involves two satellites working in tandem to create a prolonged, man-made <keyword id="6699518" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="solar-eclipse" source="Orion">solar eclipse</keyword> in space, a feat that has never been achieved before.<br /><br />Proba-3 is composed of two satellites that will fly in close formation, maintaining a precise distance of 144 metres apart. This alignment will allow one satellite to cast a shadow onto the other, effectively creating an <keyword id="22055746" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="artificial-solar-eclipse" source="Orion">artificial solar eclipse</keyword> for the other satellite. However, if you were expecting a massive difference on Earth, it is unlikely we'll see the eclipse we're used to.<br /><br />The reason this mission is so crucial is because the Sun is somewhat of a massive attention-seeker. The star’s brilliant beams are so all-encompassing that they wash out everything in their path, making it hard to discern specific waves of radiation. Imagine how difficult it would be to spot a firefly while a massive forest fire burns behind it.<br /><br />Proba-3’s primary scientific goal is to study the Sun's corona, the faint outer atmosphere usually obscured by the Sun's intense light. By blocking out the Sun's bright face, Proba-3 will provide a rare and sustained view of the corona. Interestingly enough, the mission will be launched using the PSLV-XL rocket, operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (<keyword id="6358064" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="isro" source="Orion">ISRO</keyword>).<br /><br />Formation flying requires an extraordinary level of precision, akin to maintaining the configuration of a 'large rigid structure' in space. This is achieved through a sophisticated blend of guidance and navigation technologies. Proba-3 will demonstrate these capabilities by conducting rendezvous experiments and maintaining its formation for up to six hours at a time.<br /><br />The primary instrument aboard Proba-3 is an external coronagraph, designed to study the Sun's corona closer to the solar rim than ever before. By providing a clear and extended view of this region, scientists hope to gain insights into solar phenomena such as coronal mass ejections and solar winds, which have significant impacts on space weather and, consequently, on Earth's technological infrastructure<br /><br />According to the ESA, both <keyword id="6375764" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="spacecraft" source="Orion">spacecraft</keyword> will orbit the Earth every 19.7 hours, at a maximum height of 60,530 kilometres. The coronagraph spacecraft will weigh 340 kg, while the one casting the shadow will weigh 200 kg. The mission antenna will be stationed on the Santa Maria island in Portugal, with a ground station in Redu, Belgium.<br />

ESA, ISRO to soon launch Proba-3, which will create the world’s first man-made solar eclipse

<p><strong>Good morning, readers. </strong>I'm Diamond Naga Siu, and I enjoy some of Taylor Swift's music but definitely don't consider myself a Swiftie.</p><p>I do, however, find myself <a href="https://genius.com/Taylor-swift-enchanted-lyrics" target="_blank" rel="noopener">enchanted</a> by her financial knowledge.</p><p>Unlike some of my faves (<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/lawsuit-hits-ftx-celeb-endorsers-like-tom-brady-steph-curry-2022-11">Naomi Osaka and Shaquille O'Neal</a>), Swift knew <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ftx-sbf-crypto-saga-explained-what-happened-what-it-means-2022-11">the infamous crypto exchange FTX</a> was trouble when it walked in.</p><p>She asked if the company was selling unregistered securities (which is typically illegal, by the way — <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/sec-crypto-crackdown-unregistered-security-winklevoss-gemini-kraken-ftx-2023-2">here's what it means</a>). And Swift's skepticism helped her <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/taylor-swift-avoided-100-million-ftx-deal-with-securities-question-2023-4">dodge a $100 million sponsorship</a> with the now-imploded company.</p><p>Before I study up like Taylor Swift, let's dive into today's tech.</p><p><em>If this was forwarded to you, </em><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/subscription/newsletter/10-things-in-tech"><em>sign up here</em></a><em>. Download Insider's app </em><a href="https://link.insider.com/click/27645591.160803/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuaW5zaWRlci5jb20vYXBwP25yX2VtYWlsX3JlZmVyZXI9MSZ1dG1fc291cmNlPVNhaWx0aHJ1JnV0bV9tZWRpdW09ZW1haWwmdXRtX2NvbnRlbnQ9T3BlbmluZ19iZWxs/62667762063d6b9bef0cffb3Bf9c9aa56" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>here.</em></a></p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-will-make-big-tech-even-more-powerful-2023-4"></a></p><p><strong>1. Big Tech + AI = even bigger tech. </strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-expensive-google-chatbot-bard-may-cost-company-billions-dollars-2023-2">Developing artificial intelligence is really expensive</a>. So Big Tech companies are best-positioned to gain even more power as artificial intelligence technology — like <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ai-new-coding-features-bard-chatbot-2023-4">ChatGPT</a> — gets further developed.</p><ul><li>Almost every AI tool relies on at least one of three major services: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud. So when an AI startup is trying to compete with these major companies, it's simultaneously contributing to its competitor's bottom line.</li><li>Something needs to be done about this power imbalance, researchers warn. It's contributing to a tech dynamic of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.</li><li>My teammate <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/emilia-david">Emilia David</a> breaks down the AI power imbalance and highlights some proposed solutions in her latest story.</li></ul><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-will-make-big-tech-even-more-powerful-2023-4"><strong>Power up for AI's impact on the tech industry here.</strong></a></p><p><u><strong>In other news:</strong></u></p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-humor-jokes-over-years-titter-420-69-2023-4"></a></p><div type="image" title="A composite image of a bottle of &quot;Burnt Hair&quot; and Elon Musk." height="768" width="1024" msid="99640752" hostid="261" sizebytes="36542"></div><p><strong>2. From 69 to 420: Elon Musk's middle school humor. </strong>The Twitter owner loves to crack jokes — for better or for worse. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-humor-jokes-over-years-titter-420-69-2023-4">Here's a roundup of his many (im)practical jokes over the years</a>.</p><p><strong>3. Google's ChatGPT rival is "cringeworthy" and a "pathological liar." </strong>Google employees are reportedly not impressed by Bard, their company's competitor to ChatGPT. Leaked internal discussions showed that some even found the chatbot dangerous. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-workers-called-chatgpt-ai-rival-bard-cringeworthy-liar-report-2023-4">More on Bard's harsh performance reviews here.</a></p><p><strong>4. Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Reality Labs hit with layoffs. </strong>Their parent company Meta started another round of job cuts. Software engineering, UX research, product design, and data engineering were among the most heavily impacted. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-layoffs-second-round-jobs-teams-impacted-2023-4">Get the full list here.</a></p><p><strong>5. Microsoft's secret chip to make ChatGPT more affordable. </strong>Operating the chatbot could take up to $700,000 per day, thanks to its massive computing power. But Microsoft has reportedly been working on a chip to solve these woes. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-chatgpt-costs-openai-to-run-estimate-report-2023-4">More on the secret project here.</a></p><p><strong>6. Snapchat reveals how to make money on its app. </strong>The company is opening up one of its money making programs to more users. And it laid out exactly how to qualify, including posting at least 10 stories per month. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-expands-stories-ad-revenue-sharing-program-pay-creators-qualifications-2023-4">Here's exactly what Snapchat is looking for.</a></p><p><strong>7. Rapid-grocery startup Getir is raising around $500 million in a deal that cuts its valuation almost in half,  sources say. </strong>During its last fundraise in March 2022, Getir was valued at $11.8 billion. But amid changing consumer habits and a tough funding environment, it is now believed to be valued at $6.5 billion. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/getir-hit-with-valuation-drop-in-500-million-round-2023-4">Read more</a>. </p><p><strong>8. Banning TikTok could give the government "pretty broad powers with very limited checks."</strong> Experts warn that the RESTRICT Act, if passed, would threaten American freedom of speech. Plus, it doesn't solve the underlying concerns about TikTok's ties to China. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/restrict-act-bill-legislation-regulate-tiktok-2023-4">More on the terrible side effects of banning TikTok here.</a></p><p><u><strong>Odds and ends:</strong></u></p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cheapest-tesla-now-costs-less-than-40000-price-cuts-2023-4"></a></p><div type="image" title="The Tesla Model 3 parked in a desert next to a camel." height="1107" width="1476" msid="99640756" hostid="261" sizebytes="184544"></div><p><strong>9.</strong> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xJUCsyMQes" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Is that my bestie in a Tessie?</strong></a> After multiple discounts this year, the most affordable Tesla is now $39,990. And that doesn't even include the government's hefty EV tax credit. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cheapest-tesla-now-costs-less-than-40000-price-cuts-2023-4">Check out all the latest Tesla prices here.</a></p><p><strong>10. Survey shows 12% of managers fired a Gen Z employee in their first week of work. </strong>Another 16% of managers fired a Gen Z employee within their first month of work. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/managers-say-gen-z-easily-offended-top-cause-firing-survey-2023-4">More on the termination trend here.</a></p><p><u><strong>What we're watching today:</strong></u></p><ul><li>SpaceX will try a <a href="https://www.spacex.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suborbital test launch</a> of its super heavy Starship. The vehicle is meant to go to the moon and Mars.</li><li>The Latin American Music Awards are tonight. Bad Bunny, Becky G, and Daddy Yankee are each up for multiple awards.</li><li>There's a solar eclipse, where the moon will pass between the sun and earth. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-where-when-see-solar-eclipse-united-states-nasa-map-2023-3">Here's how to watch it.</a></li><li>Quarterly earnings for AT&amp;T and other companies. <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/earnings-calendar">Keep up with earnings here</a>.</li></ul><p><em>Curated by Diamond Naga Siu in San Diego. (Feedback or tips? Email </em><a href="mailto:dsiu@insider.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>dsiu@insider.com</em></a><em> or tweet </em><a href="http://www.twitter.com/diamondnagasiu" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>@diamondnagasiu</em></a><em>) Edited by Matt Weinberger (tweet </em><a href="https://twitter.com/gamoid" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>@gamoid</em></a><em>) in San Francisco and Hallam Bullock (tweet </em><a href="https://twitter.com/hallam_bullock" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>@hallam_bullock</em></a><em>) in London.</em></p>

Artificial intelligence will make Big Tech even bigger. Something needs to be done about the power imbalance, researchers warn

<ul class="summary-list"><li><em>This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.</em></li></ul><p><strong>Hello! </strong>If your eyes are hurting after looking at yesterday's solar eclipse, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/eyes-hurt-after-solar-eclipse-solar-retinopathy-2017-8"><u>here's what could be wrong with them</u></a>. (Yes, "sunburned eyes" is a thing.)</p><p>In today's big story, we're looking at <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jamie-dimon-jpmorgan-ai-extraordinary-consequences-transformative-internet-electricity-2024-4"><u>Jamie Dimon's annual letter to shareholders</u></a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jamie-dimon-shareholder-letter-manifesto-us-exceptionalism-policy-trade-ukraine-2024-4"><u>why this edition is so different</u></a>.</p><p><strong>What's on deck:</strong></p><ul><li><p><strong>Markets:</strong> More lending is taking place outside banks, and <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/funds/private-credit-risk-leverage-debt-interest-rates-imf-financial-stability-2024-4"><u>it's got the IMF worried</u></a>.</p></li><li><p><strong>Tech:</strong> These are the European <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-the-32-most-exciting-fintech-startups-europe-2024-2024-2"><u>fintech startups to watch this year</u></a>.</p></li><li><p><strong>Business:</strong> Aspiring (human) influencers will soon <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-influencer-marketing-career-goal-ai-social-media-instagram-2024-4"><u>have to compete with AI influencers</u></a>.</p></li></ul><p>But first, Jamie's got something to say.</p><p><strong><em>If this was forwarded to you, </em></strong><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/subscription/newsletter/insider-today"><strong><em><u>sign up here.</u></em></strong></a></p><h3>The big story</h3><h2><strong>Dimon sounds off</strong></h2><div type="image" title="A photo illustration of Jamie Dimon in the foreground, with the Earth behind him." height="900" width="1200" msid="109167879" hostid="261" sizebytes="114636"></div><p><strong>When Jamie Dimon talks, people tend to listen. And this time around, he had <em>a lot</em> to say.</strong></p><p>Dimon's annual letter to shareholders grabs the business world's attention in ways most executives can only imagine. (BlackRock's Larry Fink falls into this camp as well.)</p><p>The letter goes beyond a recap of JPMorgan's current state, often opining on the biggest issues facing the US and global economies.</p><p>Unsurprisingly, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jamie-dimon-jpmorgan-ai-extraordinary-consequences-transformative-internet-electricity-2024-4"><u>artificial intelligence was the topic du jour</u></a> this time around. Dimon described the tech as just as innovative and impactful as the printing press, steam engine, electricity, and the internet, writes Business Insider's Jyoti Mann.</p><p>But the letter also came with a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jamie-dimon-jpmorgan-letter-war-inflation-recession-rates-economy-ai-2024-4"><u>fair bit of skepticism about the state of the world</u></a>, BI's Theron Mohamed writes. Dimon highlighted geopolitical tensions as a reason not to be so optimistic about the future.</p><p>It wasn't all doom and gloom. A good chunk of Dimon's letter covered <a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jamie-dimon-shareholder-letter-manifesto-us-exceptionalism-policy-trade-ukraine-2024-4"><u>economic policy changes he'd make in the US</u></a>, writes BI's Juliana Kaplan. Some of his ideas included the importance of the US involvement in global conflicts and "repairing the frayed American dream."</p><div type="image" title="Jamie Dimon" height="1000" width="2000" msid="109167880" hostid="261" sizebytes="206188"></div><p><strong>Dimon's letter reads a lot more like someone vying to move into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave than the CEO of a bank.</strong></p><p>Dimon's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jamie-dimon-career"><u>entire career has been in business</u></a>, but he's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jpmorgan-ceo-jamie-dimon-considers-politics-bill-ackman-president-election-2023-6"><u>hinted at getting into politics</u></a> when he departs JPMorgan.</p><p>In 2016, he even said he'd <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jamie-dimon-i-would-love-to-be-president-of-the-united-states-2016-9"><u>"love" to be president</u></a> but acknowledged it'd be a long shot due to his lack of political experience.</p><p>That didn't stop him from outlining some of his plans if he were to take office.</p><p>Last fall, he explained <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jamie-dimon-president-tax-the-rich-loophole-billionaires-bill-ackman-2023-11"><u>what he'd do during his first 100 days in office</u></a>. It included building a bi-partisan cabinet, removing the carried-interest loophole, and focusing on growing the economy.</p><p>But Dimon's centrist approach — "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jamie-dimon-best-quotes-2019-3#my-heart-is-democratic-but-my-brain-is-kind-of-republican-12"><u>My heart is Democratic but my brain is kind of Republican</u></a>" — likely makes him a long-shot candidate for office.</p><p>Even as we head toward a presidential rematch <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-biden-clinch-party-nominations-race-few-people-want-president-2024-3"><u>most Americans didn't want</u></a>, catering to both sides of the aisle has proven difficult. Multiple politicians declined serving as the presidential candidate for the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/no-labels-candidates-status-unity-ticket-2024-2024-3"><u>centrist group No Labels</u></a>, ultimately forcing it to end its bid to run a ticket this November.</p><p>The polarization of politics was something Dimon touched on in his letter, urging people to resist being "weaponized."</p><p>"We can start by trying to understand other people's and other voters' points of views, even around deeply emotional topics. We can stop insulting whole classes of voters."</p><h2>3 things in markets</h2><div type="image" title="A gold bear figurine (left) and a gold bull figurine (right)." height="1000" width="2000" msid="109167882" hostid="261" sizebytes="159934"></div><ol><li><p><strong>A lot of lending is taking place without much transparency. What could possibly go wrong? </strong>The International Monetary Fund posted a blog <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/funds/private-credit-risk-leverage-debt-interest-rates-imf-financial-stability-2024-4"><u>warning about the rise of private credit lending</u></a> done outside the walls of a regulated banking institution. The sector, which topped $2.1 trillion last year, is largely unsupervised, making it "hard to understand how systemic risks may be building."</p></li><li><p><strong>There's still a case for a recession. </strong>Economist David Rosenberg cited <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/recession-outlook-hard-landing-economy-unemployment-job-market-david-rosenberg-2024-4"><u>the famous recession indicator the Sahm Rule</u></a>, which flashes when the three-month moving average of the US unemployment rate climbs 50 basis points from a 12-month low. While not triggered yet, it and other under-the-radar recession warnings are signaling trouble, he added.</p></li><li><p><strong>Asia-based hedge funds are eyeing up the Middle East. </strong>Firms need plenty of talent — but there are question marks hanging over both Hong Kong and Singapore. Many hedge funds are considering <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asia-multi-strat-hedge-funds-booming-tapping-middle-east-talent-2024-4"><u>expanding westward into new hot spots like Dubai and Abu Dhabi</u></a>.</p></li></ol><h2><strong>3 things in tech</strong></h2><div type="image" title="Google and Microsoft logo" height="650" width="1300" msid="109167883" hostid="261" sizebytes="40018"></div><ol><li><p><strong>An all-out AI talent war may soon be underway. </strong>Microsoft is opening an AI division in London — which happens to be home to Google's DeepMind. Google is already <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-ai-talent-war-with-google-artificial-intelligence-2024-4"><u>trying to stop bleeding talent</u></a>, and may now have to work even harder.</p></li><li><p><strong>Keep an eye on these European fintech startups.</strong> For <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-the-32-most-exciting-fintech-startups-europe-2024-2024-2"><u>our annual list of the hottest European fintechs</u></a>, Business Insider asked venture capitalists to name which startups they're most excited about. The result is a list of 32 promising fintechs, spanning payments, insurance, and more.</p></li><li><p><strong>Elon Musk is turning X back into Twitter.</strong> With Tesla floundering, Musk appears to be <a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-turning-x-back-into-twitter-2024-4"><u>fortifying his other businesses</u></a>. "I think the whole thing about making X something dramatically different and reinventing the wheel hasn't really happened, so we're seeing a return to the basics," Gabor Cselle, a former project manager on Twitter's trends team, told BI.</p></li></ol><h2><strong>3 things in business</strong></h2><div type="image" title="An illustration of the back of a person who's facing a ring light." height="1000" width="2000" msid="109167884" hostid="261" sizebytes="498606"></div><ol><li><p><strong>AI is ruining the Gen Z dream of becoming an influencer. </strong>A recent poll found that more than half of Gen Zers want to be full-time influencers. In addition to the already-saturated market of human influencers, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-influencer-marketing-career-goal-ai-social-media-instagram-2024-4"><u>they'll soon have to compete with artificial-intelligence influencers</u></a> — and who can really compete with that?</p></li><li><p><strong>Saving for retirement has never felt scarier — or more confusing.</strong> Until about the 1980s, American workers typically got pensions in retirement. Now, however, they've shifted to plans like 401(k)s or IRAs, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/retirement-social-security-gen-z-millennials-uncertainty-fears-pensions-2024-4"><u>which have a bunch of downsides</u></a>.</p></li><li><p><strong>Warner Bros. Discovery can start selling itself. </strong>Restrictions that prevented the combined company from buying or selling anything without a huge tax penalty expired on Monday. But very little media M&amp;A is happening right now, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/warner-bros-discovery-sale-buyer-reverse-morris-trust-2024-4"><u>for a couple of reasons</u></a>.</p></li></ol><h2><strong>In other news</strong></h2><ul><li><p><a target="_blank" href="https://businessinsider.com/trump-is-suing-his-hush-money-judge-2024-4/"><u>Trump is suing his hush-money judge</u></a>.</p></li><li><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/solar-eclipse-photos-totality-us-2024-4"><u>The best photos of the 2024 solar eclipse</u></a>.</p></li><li><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-oled-ipad-pro-screen-report-2024-4"><u>It's been ages since Apple released a new iPad. A fancy new screen is expected for next month</u></a>.</p></li><li><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/investors-want-to-separate-finance-ceos-from-their-chair-seats-2024-4"><u>The big challenge for Wall Street CEOs this spring: keeping both of their jobs</u></a>.</p></li><li><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-ai-ceo-mustafa-suleyman-london-hub-2024-4"><u>Read Mustafa Suleyman's first blog as CEO of Microsoft AI</u></a>.</p></li><li><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nutritionist-cut-down-ultra-processed-food-lunch-before-after-2024-4"><u>A nutritionist who cut down on ultra-processed foods shares what he used to eat for lunch and what he eats now</u></a>.</p></li><li><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-companies-are-teaching-workers-ai-skills-2024-4"><u>How companies are selling their workers on learning AI</u></a>.</p></li><li><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/taiwan-semiconductor-tsmc-biden-microchips-chips-act-election-china-arizona-2024-4"><u>Microchip giant TSMC strikes $11.6 billion deal with Biden to boost production in Arizona</u></a>.</p></li><li><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-will-lose-war-russia-congress-funding-not-approved-zelenskyy-2024-4"><u>Zelenskyy straight-up said Ukraine is going to lose if Congress doesn't send more aid</u></a>.</p></li><li><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/no-jail-for-marvel-actor-jonathan-majors-2024-4"><u>No jail for Marvel actor Jonathan Majors after judge agrees to DA-recommended domestic violence program</u></a>.</p></li><li><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/billionaire-backed-harvard-prof-says-science-should-take-ufos-seriously-2024-4"><u>A Harvard professor is risking his reputation to search for aliens. Tech tycoons are bankrolling his quest</u></a>.</p></li></ul><h2><strong>What's happening today</strong></h2><ul><li><p>The parents of the Oxford High School shooter will be sentenced.</p></li><li><p>Boeing is announcing its Q1 deliveries.</p></li></ul><p><strong>The Insider Today team: </strong><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/dan-defrancesco">Dan DeFrancesco</a>, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/jordan-parker-erb">Jordan Parker Erb</a>, editor, in New York. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/hallam-bullock">Hallam Bullock</a>, senior editor, in London. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/george-glover">George Glover</a>, reporter, in London.</p>

Jamie Dimon had a lot to say in his annual letter to shareholders

<p class="enhanced-subtitle">Sure, Google's answer to ChatGPT will save you time. But it'll also lie to you.</p><p class="drop-cap">This week Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, <a href="https://blog.google/technology/ai/bard-google-ai-search-updates/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> that his company's internet search engine — the way the vast majority of humans interact with a near-total corpus of human knowledge — is about to change. Enter a query, and you'll get more than pages and pages of links, along with a few suggested answers. Now you'll get an assist from artificial intelligence.</p><p>"Soon," a Google blog post under Pichai's byline declared, "you'll see AI-powered features in Search that distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats, so you can quickly understand the big picture and learn more from the web." A chatbot named Bard will deliver search results in complete sentences, as a human might.</p><p>A day later Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-chatgpt-bing-finally-beat-google-2023-2">announced</a> that his company's competing search engine, Bing, will do the same, using the tech behind the popular AI chatbot <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-chat-gpt-2023-1">ChatGPT</a>. No search engine has ever really challenged Google's hold on the world's questions; Microsoft sees AI as its chance to come at the king.</p><p>These new chatbots aren't actually intelligent. The tech behind the scenes is called a large language model, a hunk of software that can extract words related to each other from a huge database and produce sophisticated writing and visual art based on minimal prompting. But when it comes to the acquisition, classification, and retrieval of knowledge, this approach is the subject of an old fight. It's been brewing since at least the early 2000s — and maybe since the 0s, at the Library of Alexandria. Fundamentally, it's a debate about the best way to know stuff. Do we engage with the complexity of competing information? Or do we let an authority reduce everything to a simple answer? </p><p>Bard has a simple answer for that age-old question. From now on, instead of showing you a dozen webpages with instructions for opening a can of beans, machine-learning droids will just tell you how to open one. And if you believe that effective search is what made the internet the most important technology of the 20th and 21st centuries, then that seemingly simple change should give you the shakes. The collateral damage in this war of the machines could be nothing less than the obliteration of useful online information forever.</p><h2>A hallucination of answers</h2><p>Sometimes a simple answer is fine. In what the trade calls a "known-item search," we just want a factual response to a specific question. What's the most popular dog breed? How old is Madonna? Google is great at that stuff.</p><p>The other kind of search — "exploratory search" — is the hard one. That's where you don't know what you don't know. What's the right phone for me? What's the deal with the Thirty Years' War? Getting a satisfactory answer is more iterative. You throw a bunch of keywords into the search box, you scroll through the links, you try new terms. It's not perfect, and it's skewed by the profit motives of advertisers and the implicit judgments that Google makes behind the scenes about which pages count as authoritative. But it's what made it possible for us to find a needle in an online haystack.</p><p>Then came ChatGPT. As Google's vice president of search told me a year ago, when I wrote an article about <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/search-web-email-google-streaming-online-shopping-broken-2022-4">why online search sucks</a>, the company was already using artificial intelligence to make its search bar better at understanding what we seekers of knowledge <em>really</em> meant. But the seemingly overnight success of ChatGPT left Google scrambling to bring online a bot of its own that could answer back. </p><p>Google has been dreaming of this particular electric sheep for a long time. At <a href="https://thenextweb.com/news/google-our-new-search-strategy-is-to-compute-answers-not-links" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a conference in 2011</a>, its chairman at the time, Eric Schmidt, declared that <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/02/google-now-wants-to-answer-your-questions-without-links-and-with-ai-where-does-that-leave-publishers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">search's endgame</a> was to use AI to "literally compute the right answer" to queries rather than identify relevant pages. A <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3476415.3476428" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2021 paper from Google Research</a> lays out that aspiration in much more detail. "The original vision of question answering," the authors write, "was to provide human-quality responses (i.e., ask a question using natural language and get an answer in natural language). Question answering systems have only delivered on the question part." Language-model chatbots might be able to provide more humanlike answers than regular old search, they added, but there was one problem: "Such models are <em>dilettantes</em>." Meaning they don't have "a true understanding of the world," and they're "incapable of justifying their utterances by referring to supporting documents in the corpus they were trained over." </p><p>To make an AI chatbot effective at search, the paper concludes, you'd have to build in more authority and transparency. You'd have to somehow remove bias from its training database, and you'd have to teach it to incorporate diverse perspectives. Pull off that <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3498366.3505816" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hat trick inside a backflip</a>, and you'd transform the bot from a dilettante to a reasonable facsimile of a "domain expert." </p><p>I talked to a bunch of non-Google computer scientists about the state of internet search for my story last year, and all of them said the same thing about this idea: Don't do it.</p><p>For one thing, chatbots lie. Not on purpose! It's just that they don't understand what they're saying. They're just recapitulating things they've absorbed elsewhere. And sometimes that stuff is wrong. Researchers describe this as a tendency to "<a href="https://research.google/pubs/pub51844/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hallucinate</a>" — "producing highly pathological translations that are completely untethered from the source material." Chatbots, they warn, are inordinately vulnerable to regurgitating racism, misogyny, conspiracy theories, and lies with as much confidence as the truth.</p><p>That's why we, the searchers, are a crucial component of the search process. Over years of exploring the digital world, we've all gotten better at spotting misinformation and disinformation. You know what I mean. When you're scrolling through the links in a Google search, looking for "esoteric shit," as one search expert calls it, you see some pages that just <em>look </em>dodgy, maybe in ways you can't even totally articulate. You skim past those and open the legit-looking ones in new tabs.</p><p>Conversational answers generated automatically by chatbots will pretty much eliminate that human element of bullshit detection. Look at it this way: If you're the kind of person who reads this kind of article, you're trained to think that a halfway decent bit of writing signifies a modicum of competency and expertise. Links to sources or quotes from experts indicate viable research and confirmed facts. But search chatbots can fake all that. They'll elide the sources they're drawing on, and the biases built into their databases, behind the trappings of acceptable, almost-but-not-quite-human-sounding prose. However wrong they are, they'll <em>sound </em>right. We won't be able to tell if they're hallucinating. </p><p>An early example of what we're in for: A wag on Mastodon who has been challenging chatbots <a href="https://qoto.org/@twitskeptic/109819433906709439" target="_blank" rel="noopener">asked a demo</a> of a Microsoft model trained on bioscience literature whether the antiparasitic drug ivermectin is effective in the treatment of COVID-19. It simply answered "yes." (<a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2797483" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ivermectin is not effective against COVID-19</a>.) And that was a known-item search! The wag was looking for a simple fact. The chatbot gave him a nonfact and served it up as the truth.</p><p>Sure, an early demo of Bing's new search bot provides traditional links-'n'-boxes results along with the AI's response. And it's possible that Google and Microsoft will eventually figure out how to make their bots better at separating fact from fiction, so you won't feel the need to check their work. But if algorithms were any good at spotting misinformation, then QAnon and vaccine deniers and maybe even Donald Trump wouldn't be a thing — or, at least, not as much of a thing. When it comes to search, AI isn't going to be a lie detector. It's going to be a very authoritative and friendly-sounding bullshit spreader.</p><h2>Knowing where we've been</h2><p>In his blog post, Pichai says conversational responses to complex queries are easier to understand than a long list of links. They're certainly faster to read — no more of that pesky scrolling and clicking. But even though a chatbot will presumably be drawing on the same sources as a traditional search engine, its answers are more likely to be oversimplifications. The risk is that search results will from now on be tales programmed by idiots, full of sound and vocabulary but with answers signifying nothing. That's not a result. It's spam.</p><p>But the really dangerous part is that the chatbot's conversational answers will obliterate a core element of human understanding. Citations — a bibliography, a record of your footsteps through an intellectual forest — are the connective tissue of inquiry. They're not just about the establishment of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0263775816668857" target="_blank" rel="noopener">provenance</a>. They're a map of replicable pathways for ideas, the ligaments that turn information into knowledge. There's a reason it's called a <em>train</em> of thought; insights come from attaching ideas to each other and taking them out for a spin. That's what an exploratory search is all about: figuring out what you need to know as you learn it. Hide those pathways, and there's no way to know how a chatbot knows what it knows, which means there's no way to assess its answer.</p><p>"In many situations there is no one answer. There is no easy answer. You have to let people discover their own answers," Chirag Shah, an information scientist at the University of Washington, told me last year. "Now we have the technical abilities to build a large language model that can capture basically all of human knowledge. Let's say we could do that. The question is, would you then use it to answer all the questions? Even the questions that are not factual? It's one thing to ask when Labor Day is, or the next full solar eclipse. It's another to ask, should Russia have invaded Ukraine?"</p><p>Complex subjects and ideas with multiple facets and arguments don't lend themselves to one-and-done answers. What you want is to click on the links, to follow your nose. That's how people turn existing information and art into something new, through innovation and synthesis. And that's exactly what chatbot search will not favor. Worst case, you won't be able to know anything outside what an opaque algorithm thinks is most relevant — factual or not.</p><p>Microsoft's bot already shows its work. Presumably Google is also working on that. But honestly, it might not be much of a priority. "They want to keep things as simple and easy as possible for their end users," Shah observes. "That allows them to intertwine more ads in the same display and to optimize on whatever metrics they want in terms of ranking. But we already know that these things are not purely ranked on relevance. They're ranked on engagement. People don't just click and share things that are factually or authoritatively correct."</p><p>Google and Bing, after all, are businesses. The chatbots answering our search terms can't be honest information brokers, not just because they're dumbasses, but because an honest information broker won't sell as many ads or amp up engagement. Google's search pages already aren't fully trustworthy — they overindex YouTube video results, for example, because YouTube is a subsidiary of Google. If the best instructional video for how to paint tabletop-game minifigures is on Vimeo? Tough.</p><p>So imagine the kind of hallucinations a large language model like Bard will have if, in addition to misreading its own sources, it's programmed to favor engagement. It'll push the stuff that keeps us meatbags clicking. And as the past few years of social media have shown, that's rarely the truth. If a search engine offers only easy answers, no one will be able to ask hard questions.</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/adam-rogers" rel=""><em>Adam Rogers</em></a> <em>is a senior correspondent at Insider.</em></p>

The new ChatGPT clones from Google and Microsoft are going to destroy online search

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Scott Olson/Getty Images</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Snap has been hit with a lot of rough news of late, but the company seems to have a really good story to tell regarding its original shows.</p><p>The original NBC/Snapchat news show "Stay Tuned" has put up some pretty eye-popping numbers thus far: 29 million unique viewers in less than a month, <a href="https://www.axios.com/community/sara"><span>reported Axios</span></a>.  </p><p>The question is, should they be the ones telling it? To read more about what the early success of <span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-is-doing-a-daily-news-show-with-nbc-news-2017-7">"Stay Tuned"</a> means for</span> Snapchat, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/snap-stock-price-jumps-on-stay-tuned-viewer-numbers-2017-8"><strong>click here.</strong></a> </p><p><strong>In other news: </strong></p><p><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-uses-solar-eclipse-to-show-off-snap-map-feature-2017-8">Snapchat is using the solar eclipse to show off the real potential of its maps feature</a>. </strong>To celebrate today's solar eclipse, Snapchatters will be able to see bitmojis of their friends who are in the path of the eclipse's "totality" wearing solar glasses and looking up into the sky.</p><p><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-favorite-brands">Millennials reveal their top 100 favorite brands</a>. </strong>Ad agency Moosylvania has released its annual list of the top 100 brands among "millennials," based on a survey of thousands of people aged 17 to 37.</p><p><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-four-brainstorming-techniques-from-the-ad-world-2017-8">From Burning Man trips to hypnotherapy: here are four brainstorming techniques you can learn from the ad world</a>. </strong>We asked four <keyword id="35666" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword> and design agencies for the homegrown methods that they use to get their employees inspired.</p><p><strong><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-18/google-like-facebook-unfurls-subscription-tool-for-publishers">Google is reportedly testing new tools with The New York Times and The Financial Times to boost subscriptions for publishers</a>.</strong><span> Some of the new tools may include a revamp of "first click free" and targeting of potential new subscribers.</span></p><p><a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/18/google-brings-six-second-video-previews-to-mobile-search/"><strong>Google is also updating its Chrome and Google apps on Android and iOS to include auto-playing, artificial intelligence-generated, six-second video previews in search results.</strong></a><span> Videos will be silent, and only show up when the user is connected to WiFi.</span></p><p><span><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-immelt-uber-ceo-ge-travis-kalanick-2017-8">Former CEO of General Electric Jeffrey Immelt is reportedly at the top of the list of potential Uber CEO replacements</a>.</strong></span> The former chief executive, Travis Kalanick, stepped down from the position in June, and the company has yet to find a new head.</p><p><a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/8/18/16166012/facebook-marketplace-craigslist-ticket-sales-auto-shopping?mod=djemCMOToday"><strong>Facebook has plans to introduce bigger retailers and ticket sales into its Marketplace section, reports Recode.</strong></a> The section has until now been a place for users to sell goods to people in their neighborhoods. </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-clinton-greg-norman-injury-monica-lewinsky-2017-8">Golf legend Greg Norman reveals the truth behind President Bill Clinton's late-night 1997 injury</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

What you need to know in advertising today

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Mark Wilson/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">President Donald Trump staring at a solar eclipse without protection, despite warnings not to do that.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>In a series of tweets Saturday, President Donald Trump revealed plans for a secret meeting with Taliban leaders at Camp David on Sunday, just days before the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.</li><li>In that same tweet, he said he was not only canceling the meeting but also calling off peace negotiations with the insurgent forces the US has been battling for nearly two decades in war-torn Afghanistan. The Taliban has used suicide bombings to kill NATO troops and civilians.</li><li>In planning the meeting, the president pushed ahead despite warnings from his top advisers, which included the vice president and national security adviser John Bolton, that such a meeting at this time might be a bad idea, CNN reported Monday.</li><li>On Monday, Trump denied he had "overruled the VP and various advisors" on holding Taliban talks at Camp David, and called the reports "false."</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a><span>.</span></li></ul><p>In planning a secret meeting with Taliban leaders, President Donald Trump ignored the warnings of his top advisers, who told him that meeting with members of the insurgency ahead of the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks was a bad idea, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/09/politics/camp-david-donald-trump-mike-pence-taliban/index.html">CNN reported</a> Monday.</p><p>Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1170469618177236992">revealed</a> in a series of tweets Saturday that he had been planning to host Taliban leaders and Ashraf Ghani, the president of Afghanistan, at a secret meeting at Camp David on Sunday. In those tweets, Trump announced that he canceled the meeting, citing a Taliban bombing that killed "one of our great soldiers" and 11 other people.</p><p><em><strong>Read more: </strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-canceled-secret-camp-david-meeting-with-taliban-leaders-2019-9">Trump says he invited Taliban leaders to Camp David for a secret meeting, but canceled because of a recent attack that killed a US soldier</a></em></p><p>The US has been attempting to secure a negotiated peace with the Taliban in order to bring an end to a war that has been ongoing for 18 years. Trump, who is eager to pull troops out of a country that has claimed over 2,200 American lives, had grown impatient with the challenging negotiations and believed that he could do better in a face-to-face negotiation with the insurgency, CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/09/politics/camp-david-donald-trump-mike-pence-taliban/index.html">reported</a>.</p><p>Trump gathered his advisers a few days before Labor Day to discuss a path to peace in Afghanistan, The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/08/world/asia/afghanistan-trump-camp-david-taliban.html?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&amp;stream=top">reported</a> Sunday. The president initially said he wanted to host peace negotiations in Washington, but in the days that followed he decided to bring the various parties to Camp David, a presidential retreat. The meeting was to be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/08/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-camp-david.html?action=click&amp;module=Top%20Stories&amp;pgtype=Homepage">followed</a> by a "grand announcement."</p><p>On Monday, Trump denied he had "overruled the VP and various advisors" on holding Taliban talks at Camp David, and called the reports "false."</p><p>The reported plans feel resemble the historic meetings between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, meetings filled with many historic firsts but short on meaningful progress.</p><p>In planning the sit-down with the Taliban leadership, Trump's advisers, including Vice President Mike Pence and White House National Security Adviser John Bolton, warned the president that meeting with the Taliban, a force that supported the Al Qaeda terrorists who carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks, just days before the 18th anniversary of those attacks was not the best idea, CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/09/politics/camp-david-donald-trump-mike-pence-taliban/index.html">reported</a> Monday, citing US officials familiar with the situation. Bolton, according to The New York Times, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/08/world/asia/afghanistan-trump-camp-david-taliban.html?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&amp;stream=top">advised</a> the president not to get in bed with killers. Trump, who was personally invested in the plans, decided to go ahead with the meeting.</p><p>Trump has a history of ignoring advisers and experts on matters in the Middle East, as well as other issues such as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/08/06/trump-is-increasingly-relying-himself-not-his-aides-trade-war-with-china/">ongoing trade war with China</a>. </p><p>Only a few advisers knew of the plans for a meeting, which Trump decided to cancel Thursday. In his tweet Saturday, the president <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1170469619154530305">revealed</a> that not only did he cancel the meeting, but he also "called off peace negotiations," casting uncertainty over the fate of talks with the Taliban.</p><p>A weekend report from The New York Times suggested that negotiations with the Taliban had hit something of a speed bump and that Trump canceled the meeting in response to Taliban resistance.</p><p><em><strong>Read more: </strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-taliban-different-stories-camp-david-meeting-canceled-2019-9">Trump and the Taliban are telling wildly different stories about why he canceled a planned meeting at Camp David days before the 9/11 anniversary</a></em></p><p>In the aftermath of Trump's tweets, a Taliban spokesman warned that "this will lead to more losses to the US," Reuters <a href="https://taskandpurpose.com/taliban-threatens-trump-afghan-peace-talks">reported</a>. "Its credibility will be affected, its anti-peace stance will be exposed to the world, losses to lives and assets will increase," he continued.</p><p>When questioned on "Fox News Sunday" about whether talks with the Taliban were finished, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has been supportive of diplomatic engagement, said, "For the time being, they are." In a later interview with CNN, he <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pompeo-taliban-overreached-in-attack-that-killed-american-2019-9">said</a> that US forces had killed more than 1,000 Taliban fighters in a period of just 10 days.</p><p>In his tweets Saturday, Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1170469621348098049">asked</a>, "How many more decades are they willing to fight?"</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/circle-of-heroes-underwater-memorial-military-veterans-florida-2019-8">A new underwater memorial honors US military veterans and serves as an artificial reef to preserve marine life</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Trump's top advisers told him meeting the Taliban at Camp David ahead of the 9/11 anniversary was a bad idea. He decided to do it anyway

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wocintechchat/25392428253/in/photolist-EFQQg8-FbT2X3-EFQCWp-ftPooe-dDBfUP-efndgT-ewbgG7-oXetPD-FsKTjm-FsLLeC-dkX34f-FbSnmq-EFRava-Fv3sF6-EFwEfd-EFvCK1-5rgEJE-FsKB9f-FsLwRf-FsKKYE-nYMPCz-FsLAtL-FbRZU7-Fv3WC8-FbSiHo-9kKWer-c4dWYw-c4dWYJ-71tYNx-nXm51S-FbS9Qd-FsKM2w-EFQUr2-EFRExi-6AEEv8-Fv4H4T-EFRgGt-6AEEuD-nEvZgC-EFwCBd-Fv3zVg-FsLfCy-FsKzdb-FsL47Y-5sLhow-EFRrGt-6Ybqki-EFwyFN-EFvDuC-nEvZXY">WOCinTech Chat/flickr</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Wealth advisors used to succeed by making insightful lunch conversation, being fun on the golf course and winning referrals. These days, effectively leveraging big data is a better bet for successful marketing.</p><p>The growing hoard of wealth invested with robo-advisor platforms is forcing advisers to change how they operate. By the end of 2017, $160 billion of assets will be invested in digital advice platforms, up from $65 billion a year ago, according to research by Aite Group and Broadridge. That number will swell<span> </span>to<span> </span><a href="http://www.broadridge.com/news-events/press-releases/Robo-Advisors-Partnerships-and-Inorganic-Intelligence-to-Drive-Future-of-Wealth-Management-Industry-According-to-Broadridge-Aite-Report.html?show=%20Press%20Release" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=http://www.broadridge.com/news-events/press-releases/Robo-Advisors-Partnerships-and-Inorganic-Intelligence-to-Drive-Future-of-Wealth-Management-Industry-According-to-Broadridge-Aite-Report.html?show%3D%2520Press%2520Release&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1504968871928000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEYQY6G0dQSN6iWB0yqA6PR5YsEbg">$400 billion</a> by<span> </span>the end of 2018. Competition from these low-priced services and the trend of replacing mutual funds with lower-priced ETFs, is compressing fees to such an extent that advisers will need to add more clients in order to generate the same fees.</p><p>Using data will help advisers get there. Just as Amazon can harness data to predict what you will shop for and data helps Netflix predict which TV series you'll want to watch, advisers today can leverage a huge reservoir of data to reveal everything from what's going on in a client's personal and professional life to how they want to communicate about their money decisions.</p><p>Artificial intelligence capabilities can filter and analyze data to help advisers grow the assets being managed for existing clients, and also market to new clients in a more targeted way. AI programs can crunch an incredible amount of information about existing clients to find which clients have more assets held in other accounts and are the ones that advisers should pursue. Broadridge research reveals that as many as one-third of all clients fall into this category.</p><p>For marketing to new clients, data can be used to develop marketing campaigns targeting specific sub-segments based on demographics and psychographic information. Firms will be able to target granular subsectors - pediatricians that own their own medical practice in Connecticut, for example. Serving specific groups will make referrals even more effective because a firm can build a reputation for helping meet the needs of a specific micro-segment.</p><p>These methods have already been used to great effect by the credit card industry. For example, Capital One<span> </span>uses<span> </span>analytics of consumer spending patterns to introduce credit cards that meet specific customer needs. That approach has helped it become the<span> </span><a href="http://www.bankrate.com/banking/americas-top-10-biggest-banks/#slide=1" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=http://www.bankrate.com/banking/americas-top-10-biggest-banks/%23slide%3D1&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1504968871929000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGkLZBMo6mWZMT03WW6crnC8i7jYg">tenth-largest</a><span> </span>bank in the United States.</p><p>In the future, cutting edge applications will be able to generate recommendations from lists of available investments and products, market events and financial plans of individual customers. Such technology might one day be able to read the facial expressions of a client during video meetings to reveal their unspoken opinions about certain investment recommendations.</p><p>Getting the most from technology will be crucial because 41% of Millennials want technology-enabled financial planning tools, according to<span> </span>a recent<span> </span><a href="http://www.roubinithoughtlab.com/wealth2021" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=http://www.roubinithoughtlab.com/wealth2021&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1504968871929000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG6bsRJm3LxlQm72Bs0ynjhY3zS7Q">Roubini ThoughtLab</a><span> </span>survey. Just like in the credit card business, the firms that succeed and grow in this new environment are the ones that make the best use of data.</p><p><em><span>Steve Scruton is President at </span></em><a href="http://www.broadridge.com/advisor-wealth-solutions/advisor-solutions" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=http://www.broadridge.com/advisor-wealth-solutions/advisor-solutions&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1504980945642000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH04Ty86yzeUmwvulsy563T27mk2g"><em><span>Broadridge Advisor Solutions</span></em></a><em><span>.</span></em></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-tell-solar-eclipse-ruined-vision-permanent-damage-2017-8">Here's how to tell if the solar eclipse ruined your vision</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

It used to be enough for wealth advisers to be fun on the golf course - now it's all about big data

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Reuters/Beawiharta Beawiharta</span></p><p class="caption">A total solar eclipse is seen from the beach of Ternate island, Indonesia, March 9, 2016.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Good morning! Here's what you need to know on Thursday.</p><p><strong>1. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-exclusive-saudi-arabia-seeks-6-8-billion-bank-loan-to-shore-up-state-coffers-2016-3" target="_blank">Saudi Arabia is seeking a bank loan of $6 billion to $8 billion, in what would be the first significant foreign borrowing by the kingdom's government for over a decade.</a></strong> Riyadh has asked lenders to submit proposals to extend it a five-year US dollar loan of that size.</p><p><strong>2. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/twitter-offers-employees-cash-and-shares-2016-3" target="_blank">Twitter has been offering additional restricted stock and cash bonus to employees to prevent staff departure</a></strong>, the Wall Street Journal reports. <span>Employees are being offered cash bonuses of between $50,000 and $200,000 to stick around another six months to a year.</span></p><p><strong>3. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-eu-ministers-meet-after-balkan-migrant-route-shut-2016-3" target="_blank">EU interior ministers are set to meet in Brussels Thursday to discuss the migrant crisis after western Balkan nations slammed shut their borders,</a><span> </span></strong>exacerbating a dire humanitarian situation on the Macedonian frontier.</p><p><strong>4. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-names-of-22000-is-members-leaked-to-news-channel-report-2016-3" target="_blank">Tens of thousands of documents containing the names, addresses, phone numbers, and family contacts of jihadis who joined the Islamic State have been given to Sky News.</a></strong> Sky reported that a disillusioned former member had handed over the documents on a memory stick that had been stolen from the head of the group's internal security police.</p><p><strong>5. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-samsung-elec-says-preorders-for-galaxy-s7-phones-stronger-than-expected-2016-3" target="_blank">Tech giant Samsung has seen stronger-than-expected preorders for its new flagship Galaxy S7 smartphones launching this week, a senior company executive said on Thursday.</a></strong></p><p><strong>6. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/maria-sharapova-facebook-post-thanks-fans-declares-tennis-return-2016-3" target="_blank">Maria Sharapova posted a Facebook message on Wednesday evening thanking her fans for their support after she announced she had failed a drug test.</a> </strong>The Russian wrote a long, scrambled note about reading emails, going to the gym, online shopping, and being followed by paparazzi.</p><p><strong>7. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/apple-executive-speculates-that-fbi-could-forced-to-turn-on-cameras-or-microphones-2016-3" target="_blank">Apple's online-services boss has warned that if the FBI were to get its way, Apple might be forced to use an iPhone's camera or microphone to spy on people.</a></strong> <span>In an interview </span>broadcast on Univision, Eddy Cue defended Apple's refusal to cooperate with the FBI and extract data from an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.</p><p><strong>8. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-stephen-hawking-says-britain-leaving-eu-would-damage-science-2016-3" target="_blank">Stephen Hawking was among 150 academics to declare support for Britain remaining in the European Union on Thursday in a letter to The Times newspaper which said leaving the bloc would damage science and research.</a></strong></p><p><strong>9. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/powa-technologies-greenlight-digital-ceo-says-peter-was-robbed-to-pay-paul-2016-3" target="_blank">The CEO of Greenlight Digital, which last week bought part of failed London tech business Powa Technologies, says just one of Powa's three main businesses made any money.</a></strong></p><p><strong>10. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-deepmind-ai-alphago-defeats-human-lee-sedol-go-in-south-korea-2016-3" target="_blank">In a major milestone for artificial-intelligence research Google's DeepMind AI division defeated a human world champion at Chinese strategy game Go.</a> </strong>DeepMind's "AlphaGo" AI won the game in Seoul, South Korea, by resignation after 186 moves. </p><p><strong>And finally ... <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/laurene-powell-jobs-inherited-steve-jobs-fortune-2016-2" target="_blank">Meet Laurene Powell Jobs, the mysterious woman who inherited Steve Jobs' fortune.</a></strong></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-50-cent-made-lost-money-bankruptcy-court-2016-2">This is how rapper 50 Cent made millions and then lost it</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="VlbnI2djrZXIh9tIkLc68cC984sL8GSb" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

The 10 most important things in the world right now

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>NASA</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>The award for strangest star in the universe just went to KIC 8462852.</p><p>And <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/forget-water-on-mars-astronomers-may-have-just-found-giant-alien-megastructures-orbiting-a-star-near-a6693886.html">while some</a> <a href="http://news.discovery.com/space/alien-life-exoplanets/has-kepler-discovered-an-alien-megastructure-151014.htm">are saying</a> that this star could be harboring a giant structure built by an advanced alien civilization, the scientists behind the hype are saying otherwise.</p><p>Business Insider recently spoke with two of these astronomers to find out what's really going on and if this structure really is proof of alien intelligence or a complete hoax. </p><p>For some background: A postdoctoral graduate at Yale, <a href="http://exoplanets.astro.yale.edu/people/undergrads.php">Tabby Boyajian</a>, and Penn State astronomer Jason Wright, recently discovered a bizarre and mysteriously giant structure orbiting the star that's unlike anything they've ever seen.</p><p>And now they're doing what scientists do best: weighing all of the possible explanations until more data comes in that can rule out the wrong reasons in favor of the right one.</p><p>Right now, there are many options on the table, including a giant swarm of comets, left-over chunks from a broken-up planet, and last but certainly not least an alien-built megastructure. But we won't know for sure until more data is collected.</p><h2>Is it aliens?</h2><p>As Penn State astronomer Kimberly Cartier told Business Insider about the coverage: "It's gotten a bit out of hand." What's more, she said that the probability of this exciting, yet wildly confusing, observation being aliens is "very low."</p><p>She also emphasized: "Just to clarify, neither [my colleague] Jason [Wright] or myself ... are advocating that it is an alien megastructure, but we also can't completely rule it out."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-498883p1.html">Shutterstock/Albert Ziganshin</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Cartier works with Wright who is spearheading the search for these megastructures as a way to enhance the SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) project. The two collaborated on a <a href="http://www2.astro.psu.edu/~jtwright/Dyson/GHAT4.pdf">scientific paper</a> about how to go about finding these structures.</p><p>Moreover, Wright <a href="http://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/">recently blogged</a> about his work with KIC 8462852.</p><p>His post does an excellent job of presenting the data in a straight-forward, non-hyped way. But as he recently <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-most-interesting-star-in-our-galaxy/410023/">told Atlantic reporter</a> Ross Andersen, "Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilization to build."</p><p>We asked Wright how he felt about the hype his quote has since spawned.</p><p>"I think the star is really inexplicable, but I would put the probability that [aliens] is what it is as very low."</p><h2>What's really going on</h2><p>Right now, the only scientific information astronomers have for star KIC 8462852 is its light curves, which is an estimate of how much light Earth receives from the star over a given period of time.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory#/media/File:Arecibo_Observatory_Aerial_View.jpg">Uploaded to Wikipedia by File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske)</a></span></p><p class="caption">The Arecibo Radio Telescope began collecting data for SETI in 1999.</p></div><p></p></div></div>These light curves reveal that something giant, about half the width of the star, is blocking the light but in bizarre bursts that are anything but periodic. If the obstruction were a planet eclipsing the star, it would block the light with a predictable pattern as the planet orbited the star.</p><p>But "the eclipses have very strange shapes in the sense that whatever is blocking it is not a circular object," Wright told Business Insider. "And there's lots of them - lots of things blocking the star. When you put all that together, there's nothing like that [anywhere else] in the sky. It's unique and very very strange."</p><p>These light curves were first collected by a post doctoral fellow at Yale, <a href="http://exoplanets.astro.yale.edu/people/undergrads.php">Tabby Boyajian</a>. After Boyajian presented them at Penn State, Wright took an immediate interest and soon after contacted Andrew Siemion, who works at the Berkeley SETI Research Center. The two submitted a telescope proposal to study the star in more detail that is still pending.</p><p>What wright would like to do next is take what are called spectra of the star. Spectra are a critical tool in astronomy that allows researchers to essentially take a chemical fingerprint of an object that tells them what it's made of.</p><p>"I want to see spectra when its dim and spectra when its bright and compare the two," Wright said. "And the difference should tell us what the light is passing through and tell us whatever is blocking it, what that's made of. That will be very diagnostic."</p><h2>Is Earth doomed?</h2><p>In the mean time, as we wait for Wright and Siemion to collect more information, it is worth addressing the possibility that if (and that's a very big if) this structure were made by an alien civilization, is Earth doomed?</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Shutterstock</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>To that, Cartier said absolutely not.</p><p>If the structure were artificial, it would be what Cartier and Wright describe as a Dyson sphere, which is a type of energy generating device and was first described by theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson in a 1960 paper in <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword>.</p><p>"The structure itself is not meant to support life, Cartier told Business Insider. "It's something called a Dyson sphere, which is essentially a large porous series of solar panels ... that's meant to capture some of the starlight and convert it into usable energy for a civilization that's orbiting farther out in a region that would be more habitable."</p><p>While constructing a Dyson sphere would require a tremendous amount of resources, it does not take technology that is vastly advanced to our own to build. That means, these potential alien beings have not likely invented warp drives to skip across the galaxy just yet.</p><p>"Certainly to build a structure that big requires a lot more resources and potentially more advanced technology than we currently have available to us," Cartier told Business Insider. "However that doesn't imply that they have the capabilities to travel all the way here to Earth."</p><p>The star KIC 8462852 is over 1,400 light years from Earth. So, don't worry, the world won't be coming to an end due to an alien invasion any time soon.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/animated-scale-universe-atom-human-earth-galaxy-2015-9">This 3-minute animation will change the way you see the universe</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="JpMjRidzrV91DMzSO8bSnK_7bVSfKCdj" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

We spoke with the astronomers who discovered the 'alien' megastructure to find out if it's hype or hoax

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Dbachmann via Wikimedia" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5462974cecad049547dc66dc-960/nebra_scheibe.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebra_sky_disk#mediaviewer/File:Nebra_Scheibe.jpg">Dbachmann via Wikimedia</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div>The design on this disc might look like a six-year-old's scribbles, but in reality, it's one of the most sophisticated and influential artifacts of the Bronze Age.</p>
<p>And it might never have been discovered if not for a couple of illegal treasure hunters who dug it up and sold it on the black market.</p>
<p>Called the Nebra sky disc, named for the town where it was found in 1999, the artifact has been dated back to 1600 BC. It's thought to have been forged during the European Bronze Age, a period between 3200 and 600 BC.</p>
<p>The disc's discovery stunned archaeologists, who thought of the Bronze Age as brutal, uncivilized times of killing and little else - most artifacts we've found are swords and other weapons designed for battle.</p>
<p>The disc is about one foot across and weighs nearly five pounds. When it was first crafted, it would have shone a brilliant golden brown because the disc itself is made from bronze. But over time, the bronze corroded to green.</p>
<p>The symbols are made of gold and didn't corrode. Although experts do not agree on what each symbol represents, for example the full circle could be the sun, full moon, or some type of eclipse, the overall message is clear that the symbols represent celestial objects.</p>
<p>This disc meant that the people of the Bronze Age were not an uncivilized culture that only crafted weapons for killing. Instead, the people who lived at this time had an intellectual understanding of the sky.</p>
<h3>Police-Led Sting For The Find Of The Century</h3>
<p>For millennia, the disc was buried in the Seigelroda Forest in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt near a town called Nebra. But in 1999, two men, Henry Westphal and Mario Renner, were hunting for buried treasure in the forest when their metal detectors led them to an underground stash. They uncovered two bronze swords, two hatchets, a chisel, fragments of bracelets, and the beautifully decorated disc.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="4tuneQkie on Flickr" title_caption="Mock representation of the sky disc and the hoard of other artifacts it was found with." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54bfd93a6da8113a47b83994-960/13670279903_90124c9329_o.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/spaceholix/13670279903/in/photolist-mPZKX6-n1jykT-mPZRei-n1m82x-n1mkDf-mQ1abk-mPZVCF-mPZP22-mQ1pPP-n1m9mB-mQ1iez-mQ1gxP-mPZRRR-mQ1kdp-mPZPDe-mPZwpg-n1jCGr-mPZX3c-n1mfoK-mQ2kvY-mQ1o8T-mQ1bB6-mPZNd8-n1meWc-n1jFDi-mPZA6K-mYtkVV-nfKhJe-nihbav-nmm99u-njA5bY-nmm84o-nmYzQh-pQbJve-nn4qhi-pPWYgz-pQbHZ4-nng1BH-pxMBny-nmma6E-nmm9Lw-pxG69B-nhNroT-nmm9Yz-nih8pa-nihdW2-oyW4pt-nhNvMT-nfLhGQ-pxG6De">4tuneQkie on Flickr</a></span></p><p class="caption">Mock representation of the sky disc and the hoard of other artifacts it was found with.</p></div><p></p></div></div>According to state law in Saxony-Anhalt, all archaeological artifacts are the property of the state. Westphal and Renner had no license to dig for artifacts of any kind, and no legal right to the collection. But that didn't stop them from selling everything they found on the black market.</p>
<p>Over the next few years the entire collection became a well-known commodity and was traded multiple times on the black market selling for up to one million Deutsch Mark (roughly $590,000). Then, in 2002, archaeologist Herald Meller arranged a meeting with the current holders to purchase the disc, alone, for 700,000 DM ($350,000). But the meeting was not what it seemed.</p>
<p>Meller was collaborating with the state police to recover the priceless artifacts, and within seconds of the dealers' reveal of the disc, the police swooped in and arrested them. Eventually, the disc was traced back to Westphal and Renner who were sentenced to jail time.</p>
<h2>Spotting A Fake</h2>
<p>Archeologist's were stunned when they finally got a good, close look at the artifact. The Nebra sky disc was unlike any other artifact of its time. Some archaeologists thought the disc was too incredible to be real.</p>
<p>"When I first heard about the Nebra Disc I thought it was a joke, indeed I thought it was a forgery," Richard Harrison told the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndhw7aX_ME8">BBC in a documentary of the disc</a>. Harrison is a professor of European prehistory at the University of Bristol and expert on the culture that inhabited Germany during the Bronze Age. "Because it's such an extraordinary piece that it wouldn't surprise any of us that a clever forger had cooked this up in a backroom and sold it for a lot of money."</p>
<p> </p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>The disc was sent to the laboratory of Heinrich Wunderlich at the Museum of Halle in Eastern Germany. Heinrich specializes in dating artifacts from the Bronze age. If the disc was a fake, he could easily find out by studying the greenish bronze covering the disc.</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_disease">Bronze disease</a> is the corrosive process that occurs when chloride molecules, such as chloride salts in soil, interact with bronze (or other copper-based materials). The result is a chemical reaction producing microscopic crystals that look either white or green. Over time, these crystals grow larger, which means that Wunderlich could easily spot a forgery by looking at the size of the crystals.</p>
<p>When he looked under the microscope, he saw large crystals, which resembled large bubbles, shown in the image below, that spoke to the disc's authenticity. It was no fake.</p>
<p>"When I saw down the microscope, I saw structure which was like bubbles," Wunderlich told BBC. "This can not be made artificially. You can't fake time."</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="BBC" title_caption="Crystals of Bronze disease on the Nebra sky disc." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54bfda366bb3f7237d01c452-960/screen shot 2015-01-21 at 11.55.09 am.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAyUpT9nhLQ">BBC</a></span></p><p class="caption">Crystals of Bronze disease on the Nebra sky disc.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h2>Secrets Of The Nebra Sky disc</h2>
<p>Scientists have dated the disc to the time it was buried underground, but <a href="http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-technology/secrets-nebra-sky-disc-001526">they don't know</a> exactly when it was made. It was buried about 3,600 years ago but could be much older.</p>
<p>In addition to its age, the precise meaning of the disc eludes explanation. But an expert in Bronze Age religions, Miranda Aldhouse Green, at Cardiff University in the UK, has put together a general picture of what it might have meant for the people who used it thousands of years ago.</p>
<p>Below is a labeled version of the disc, but you'll have to translate some of the words since they're in German.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Gerhard Singer on Flickr" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54bfe6726bb3f7e82b01c456-960/95689315_beada1908f_o.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gerhard3/95689315/in/photolist-9sr6M-8pYJm5-9HYvW8-8pYJto-5wSTM4-8SBzfG-nfKrGf-nfKftT-nfKg1f-mYtntB-mQ1d2v-pNEqjr-pLNDSj-oS1Jhd-mPZHpc-mQ2rNY-mQ2BD9-6iehv5-n1nTtA-mY1Ebr-nkihk5-nfKvef-nfKYBS-nf7sFJ-nhabUX-nfKuce-nfKqQ5-nfKYdL-mPZLUi-n1nSVm-mPZxdF-mQ1fbv-mPZKX6-n1jykT-mPZRei-n1m82x-n1mkDf-mQ1abk-mPZVCF-mPZP22-mQ1pPP-n1m9mB-mQ1iez-mQ1gxP-mPZRRR-mQ1kdp-mPZPDe-mPZwpg-n1jCGr-mPZX3c">Gerhard Singer on Flickr</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div>There are six objects of importance depicted on the disc:</p>
<ul>
<li>Sun (or full Moon or a type of solar or lunar eclipse)</li>
<li>Crescent Moon</li>
<li>Sun Boat</li>
<li>Pleiades Constellation</li>
<li>Left arc</li>
<li>Right arc</li>
</ul>
<p>It makes sense that the full circle slightly left of center would be the sun, Green said in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndhw7aX_ME8">BBC documentary</a>, "The sun is absolutely central to northern European Bronze Age religion. There's a clear connection between the sun and life. If the sun disappears then life comes to an end."</p>
<p>And the crescent shape is likely a crescent moon. In ancient times, the moon was used to represent time, and, "if you can control time, and if you understand time, then you are a powerful, a powerful human being," <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2004/stardisctrans.shtml">Green said</a>.</p>
<p>Then there's the smiley-shaped band beneath the sun and moon, which Green suspects is the sun boat - an ancient holy symbol. Bronze Age Europeans believed that the sun traveled on a sun boat when it set at night.</p>
<p>The smaller circles speckled across the disc seem to represent stars. In particular, the concentrated clump between the sun and moon are thought to be the Pleiades constellation, which was an imporant constellation for Bronze Age farmers because it first appeared in March and disappeared in October - important farming times.</p>
<p>"We know from Greek writers that the Pleiades were used as an agricultural marker, so that farmers knew when they should do certain agricultural activities," Green said. "So what the Nebra disc does is to tell people not only the right time to [plant and harvest] but it is the blessed time to do it."</p>
<p>The left and right arcs on either side of the disc have an additional agricultural importance and were crucial in helping scientists determine that the disc was European-made.</p>
<h2>The Dawn Of European Civilization</h2>
<p>After analyzing these fairly simple explanations, archaeologists around the world started asking other questions: What did the arcs represent? Was the disc actually an artifact forged by Bronze Age Europeans? Or was it from another culture and managed to make its way into Germany by some unknown means?</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Linie M - Metall Form Farbe on Flickr" title_caption="This highly polished stainless steel plate Marks the reference of Nebra sky disc." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54bfe9c4ecad0405050e0b75-960/4865845508_f3bcdd0135_o.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/linie-m_metall-form-farbe/4865845508/in/photolist-8pYJm5-9HYvW8-8pYJto-5wSTM4-8SBzfG-nfKrGf-nfKftT-nfKg1f-mYtntB-mQ1d2v-pNEqjr-pLNDSj-oS1Jhd-mPZHpc-mQ2rNY-mQ2BD9-6iehv5-n1nTtA-mY1Ebr-nkihk5-nfKvef-nfKYBS-nf7sFJ-nhabUX-nfKuce-nfKqQ5-nfKYdL-mPZLUi-n1nSVm-mPZxdF-mQ1fbv-mPZKX6-n1jykT-mPZRei-n1m82x-n1mkDf-mQ1abk-mPZVCF-mPZP22-mQ1pPP-n1m9mB-mQ1iez-mQ1gxP-mPZRRR-mQ1kdp-mPZPDe-mPZwpg-n1jCGr-mPZX3c-n1mfoK">Linie M - Metall Form Farbe on Flickr</a></span></p><p class="caption">This highly polished stainless steel plate Marks the reference of Nebra sky disc.</p></div><p></p></div></div>It was astronomer Wolfhard Schlosser, at the University of Hamburg, who made the connection. He found that if you draw a line from the center of the disc to the top and bottom end of the right arc, the angle between the two ends measures exactly 82 degrees. And it's the same value for the left golden arc.</p>
<p>This number is very important for only a small group of people who live at the same latitude as the current German town of Nebra. That's because it's the angle between where the sun sets on the horizon in mid-winter and mid-summer.</p>
<p>"The angle between both is precisely eighty two degrees," Schlosser told BBC. "This angle responds to the journey of the sun between summer and winter for this specific latitude right here in Nebra."</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Although Schlosser's find offered compelling evidence that the disc was crafted in Europe, the only way to determine beyond any doubt was to discover where the metals came from.</p>
<p>Archaeologist Ernst Pernicka further investigated the copper within the bronze. Copper has a unique fingerprint that Pernicka used to compare copper in Bronze Age mines versus Mediterranean metals. From this, he traced the disc's metal to a European mine, confirming that the disc was manufactured from European metal and was not a gift crafted by another culture.</p>
<p>After millennia under ground and years on the black market, the disc today is safe and on public display at the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle, Germany.</p>
<p>In 2013, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization inducted the disc into their <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/flagship-project-activities/memory-of-the-world/register/full-list-of-registered-heritage/registered-heritage-page-6/nebra-sky-disc/">Memory of the World Register</a> stating:</p>
<p>The bronze disc is considered to be one of the most important archaeological finds of the 20<sup>th</sup> Century. It combines an extraordinary comprehension of astronomical phenomena with the religious beliefs of its period, that enable unique glimpses into the early knowledge of the heavens.</p>

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