Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 8

Virginia State Exposes What It Costs to Be in the Michelin Guide

The upcoming Michelin Southern Restaurant Guide will be missing locations from one state this year: Virginia. Rather than paying the $360,000 “partnership fee,” the state’s tourism department took the unusual step of not only refusing to pay but also publicly revealing exactly what it costs to be included. Since the admission, it has been revealed that cities such as Atlanta, Orlando, Boulder and many others have paid as much as $1M for these fees.

Michelin argues that these fees are necessar...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: The Algorithm by Hilke Schellmann

Imagine a future where an algorithm reads everything from your facial expressions during an interview to everything you have ever shared on social media in order to determine whether you get hired or fired. Actually, maybe you don’t need to imagine that future … because it’s already here. This is a book about the reality of how algorithms are already being used in the workplace and why those usages are just the beginning. The only way to curb the influence of algorithms unilaterally making decis...

The Dangerous Stupidity of “Doing Your Own Research”

In a recent interview, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggested that parents of newborn babies should do their own research before vaccinating their babies. Here’s the full quote:

“I would say that we live in a democracy, and part of the responsibility of being a parent is to do your own research. You research the baby stroller, you research the foods that they’re getting, and you need to research the medicines that they’re taking as well.”

This came in the same week that Kennedy a...

Why the Nike Backlash May Be Just the Beginning

When Jennifer and I wrote Beyond Diversity, one of the first things we talked about was blind spots. We knew that there would be things we could not see or cultural references we might not know. It was the reason we engaged six contributors and another eight sensitivity readers to help us uncover those deficits in our own knowledge. That’s what being inclusive requires.

This week Nike saw a huge backlash to a tone-deaf billboard they created which used the phrase “Never Again,” which was alre...

UAE Becomes First Region to Experiment with Using AI to Write New Laws

Here’s a fascinating statistic about the recent state of AI regulation: “at least 69 countries have proposed over 1,000 AI-related policy initiatives globally, but these primarily focus on how to control AI rather than empower it.” What could empowered AI do for the future of government? The United Arab Emirates is the first nation to test the ability for AI tools to actually create legislation. What does a future where AI writes the laws look like? For many people, this is the opening to an epi...

Should You Be Polite to Chatbots? Research Says Yes. Sam Altman Says It Costs Millions in “Wasted” Computing Power

How polite are you when you ask ChatGPT a query? According to Sam Altman, the human propensity to be nice when asking technology for solutions is “wasting millions of dollars of computing power.” Some experts aren’t so sure. One suggested that being kind “helps generate respectful, collaborative outputs,” while another noted that “when it clocks politeness, it’s more likely to be polite back.” There is plenty of social research that does show this to be the case in social media interactions betw...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: True or False by Cindy L. Otis

This wonderfully useful book written by former CIA analyst Cindy L. Otis is actually meant for young adults to teach them about how to spot fake news and become more media literate. This was what initially intrigued me about the book. Among the necessary life skills that students rarely learn in school, I think media literacy has to be near the top. So a book that promises to teach that to young people immediately deserves praise and elevation. Beyond that, though, the stories and insights i...

Inside the Marketing Savvy of the World’s Lightest Whiskey Bottle

Claiming that a product is the world’s most ___________ is the most common marketing gateway to empty hyperbole that is sure to inspire plenty of eyerolling. There’s something a bit unusual, though, about Johnnie Walker’s latest announcement. For one thing, they offer these magic three words: “what we believe” in front of their claim. They go on in their product landing page to share that “according to our research, it is also believed to be the world’s lightest 700ml Scotch Whisky glass bottle ...

Earth Day, Environmental Hostility and The Blue Marble 50 Years Later

This past week was Earth Day and one of the efforts to commemorate the day was NASA recognizing the 50th anniversary of their iconic “blue marble” photo of the Earth by releasing a similar image taken fifty years later. How did they compare?

“In the 50 years that separates these two snapshots in time, one of the most striking differences is the visible reduction in the size of the Antarctic ice sheet. The Sahara Desert has also grown while the rainforest ‘is retreating further south … the dom...

The Complex Reality of “Girlbosses” In Space

This week the first all-female crew for a “manned” spaceflight headed to space—for ten minutes—on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. One of the passengers was pop singer Katy Perry who reportedly broke into song while on the flight (What a Wonderful World) and promptly kissed the ground when she landed safely back to Earth. Again, she was gone for ten minutes. Of course, the backlash was swift and fierce, which surprised some of the passengers. People online called it everything from a publicity ...