Saturday's Profile

I agree with the author that the medical industry is certainly an interesting area where additive manufacturing can add significant value to the products. While I don’t doubt the rapid introduction of additive manufacturing in the industry, I would question the author’s view on the cost implication of this new technology on the small medical device manufacturers. Although the minimum required capital investment for the additive manufacturing may be relatively small, I suspect that large medical device manufacturer can quickly develop a higher-quality additive manufacturing technology by spending significant amount of capital that the smaller competitors don’t have. Consequently, I am concerned that monopoly in the industry would accelerate because the smaller companies without sufficient capital to compete against the best-in-class additive manufacturing technology will lose their competitiveness against the larger rivals. I would like to know the author’s view on this potential competitive dynamics in the medical industry.

I appreciate the author for sharing this UNHCR initiative which I was not aware of. Add to the insightful and valid comments above, I would add that it is critical to have repetitive mutual feedback system between UNHCR and the refugees about the refugees’ demand. In other words, I think it is not sufficient for UNHCR to just hear the refugees’ demand and respond. In fact, I think UNHCR needs to hear feedback again from the refugees on how they felt about the UNHCR’s response and reaction. Since the refugees’ demand should be highly personal and complicated, I believe such cycles of mutual feedback to keep improving the UNHCR’s solutions to the various groups of refugees would be highly effective in leveraging the power of open innovation.

This is a very interesting topic and I believe that the new 3D printing technology will replace some human workers in the construction sector because of its efficiency and productivity. The author mentioned that in the medium to long term, the new 3D printing technology becomes more economical and available for small construction firms. However, I suspect that large construction firms will soon buy the cutting-edge 3D printing technology and internally research and improve the technology further by spending a lot of capital that smaller competitors don’t have. As a result, I am a little worried that monopoly in the construction industry will intensify because the smaller companies without enough capital to compete against the latest 3D printing technology will lose relative competitiveness against the larger peers. I would like to know what the author thinks about this potential competitive dynamics in the construction industry.

This is a very interesting topic because it shows how machine learning is putting legal practices, one of the most highly-skilled and specialized industries traditionally, at risk of workforce replacement (i.e. human lawyers to machine algorithms). To answer the author’s question, I believe that the work that can be done by machines will keep increasing as the technology develops. Also, another intriguing point is that, as Jane Doe commented above, it was JP Morgan, not a law firm, that developed this algorithm. Given how law firms have been justifying the hefty legal fees because they are the only entities that are licensed to do the legal work, JP Morgan is apparently posing huge threats to law firm by signaling that it can develop algorithms that are smarter than human lawyers, and that it can potentially receive a legal practice license to have the algorithm compete against other traditional law firms. If the JP Morgan algorithm becomes superior than human lawyers in wider legal areas, I suggest that the traditional law firms buy or subscribe to this algorithm as soon as possible, so that they can protect themselves against the new powerful market entrants (a.k.a. machines).

I think it would be difficult for Quantopian to keep incentivizing the authors, because authors need to keep outperforming the market (with justifiable amount of risk) to keep attracting more institutional investors, thereby giving a reason for Quantopian to keep incentivizing the authors. In other words, if the authors cannot keep performing well over the long run, this platform cannot sustainably keep supporting the authors. History dictates that it is extremely challenging to keep outperforming the market over the long term. Thus, I am basically skeptical about the sustainability of the company’s incentive system.

This is a very interesting topic. The author is right in pointing out that there is room for process improvement at the US judicial system. While I agree with his point on the potential for judges’ biases, I would add that human judges should be better at flexibly adjusting to the latest social and cultural trends than machines. I think it is an important point because the “right” verdicts constantly change as the society keeps changing. So to answer his question on what the US Justice Department should work on, I believe an important aspect to address is to teach machines how to learn the latest social and cultural trends and to accordingly change the way they reach verdicts that they think are “right.”