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we have a literal interpretation of free will now in the context of algorithms, which is: Are you making the final choice?

a third of your choices on Amazon are driven by recommendations. Eighty percent of viewing activities on Netflix are driven by algorithmic recommendations. Seventy percent of the time people spend on YouTube is driven by algorithmic recommendations

We might see less than 0.01% of any search results, because rarely do we even cross page one. The algorithm has decided which pages we look at. So yes, they’re making a lot of choices for us.

By 2020, the Fourth Industrial Revolution will have brought us advanced robotics and autonomous transport, artificial intelligence and machine learning, advanced materials, biotechnology and genomics. These developments will transform the way we live, and the way we work. Some jobs will disappear, others will grow and jobs that don’t even exist today will become commonplace. What is certain is that the future workforce will need to align its skillset to keep pace.

Creativity will become one of the top three skills workers will need.

negotiation and flexibility are high on the list of skills

innovation is coming from private companies. These companies are starting to have better insights about how a city works compared to local governments.

Cities should be collecting all the data these companies are generating — Airbnb, Uber, drone delivery, Google self-driving cars. You can run analytics and look at the efficiency of the city

The startup is building a platform so that all the companies can send their data to this platform using an API approach.

Now, it is the Millennials’ turn to be the whipping boys, and girls. Their attitudes are in sharp contrast with those of the Boomers who are increasingly running the organizations where they work. While Boomers believe strongly in the value of experience and working your way up, Millennials are seen as feeling entitled and over-pampered by parents only too well aware of how challenging the workplace has become for those who are not sufficiently prepared

Millennials are significantly more likely to ask for a pay rise and a promotion than their counterparts in either of the preceding generations

they are also rather more likely than their elders to complain of long hours.

Google’s project to change transportation by designing cars which can drive themselves is getting less secretive

a trip which will be far less tedious when I can do it while reading, answering email or otherwise being productive.

Sergey Brin has talked about self-driving cars being a reality for “everyday people” within five years–and he said that a year and a half ago, which would suggest he was thinking about 2017

The City Council's Housing and Buildings Committee heard testimony Tuesday from residents, housing advocates, city officials and companies about the effects of the growing industry on the city.

In November 2014, about 15,300 New York City listings were entire homes or apartments representing about 59% of the available listings on the site that month, according to Slee. There were also 9,704 listings for private rooms, and 753 listings for shared rooms. The analysis also showed that 2,764 users were renting out two or more units, which opponents have cited as evidence the service is helping illegal hotels. More than 200 users were renting out five units or more

Airbnb is calling for "smart regulation," which it has had success with in cities including Portland, Oregon; San Jose and San Francisco, California; Amsterdam; and Paris. Airbnb collects lodging tax directly from hosts in those cities, and several local governments have passed laws that allow short-term rentals in some form.

making robots look like humans or cute animals, we may develop emotional affinity toward the machines

. This could help promote trust with users—but perhaps also overtrust?

Robots are tools, but they are tools that sometimes hold meaning for people that interact with them, or through them, as when robots are teleoperated at a distance

Recently, an app called Peeple got a whole lot of attention for trying to be the Yelp for Humans

But what would it be like if we lived in a world where everything you do is subject to a rating doled out by a combination of machines and other people?

Michael Fertik, the founder of Reputation.com and the author of the book The Reputation Economy, talks on the episode about all the ways that brands and companies are already compiling your information into a profile that helps them make decisions about you. Linkedin, AirBnB, Uber, they’re all gathering what Fertik calls your “digital exhaust” to learn more about you