The official blog of Stathis Kassios for Business, Media, Economics & Arts

Ένας ακόμη χρόνος έφτασε στο τέλος του, φέρνοντας μαζί του πολλές εξελίξεις, τόσο σε τοπικό αλλά και σε διεθνές επίπεδο. Κάνοντας μια σύντομη ανασκόπηση των σημαντικότερων γεγονότων που κυριάρχησαν στο δημόσιο διάλογο, τον τύπο και τις αναφορές στα κοινωνικά δίκτυα, ας ξεκινήσουμε με την κυριαρχία της τεχνητής νοημοσύνης. Ο χαρακτηρισμός “κυριαρχία” ίσως ενοχλήσει κάποιους καθώς μπορεί να ερμηνευτεί ως προτετελεσμένη εξέλιξη. Ωστόσο, η συνεχής έρευνα για τη μηχανική μάθηση, τα νευρωνικά δίκτυα και ο αυτοματισμός που προκύπτει από την τεχνητή νοημοσύνη έχει ήδη ξεκινήσει να επηρεάζει και αντικαθιστά σημαντικό μέρος της ανθρώπινης εργασίας και δραστηριότητας. Δυστοπική είναι η πρόβλεψη της Goldman Sachs ότι η συγκεκριμένη τεχνολογία μπορεί να απειλήσει έως και 300 εκατομμύρια θέσεις εργασίας στο Δυτικό κόσμο. Η εφαρμογή της τεχνητής νοημοσύνης διαπερνά κάθε ανθρώπινο πεδίο, από την ιατρική επιστήμη έως τις εφαρμογές για έξυπνες πόλεις, τη διακυβέρνηση, την πολιτική, το περιβάλλον ...

Since 2009 , it’s been a personal tradition to reflect on the passing year and share insights into upcoming global trends. Delighted to continue this tradition by presenting my latest article, “Global Trends in 2024”! Join me as I explore the events that shaped our world and offer personal thoughts and predictions for the coming year. Your thoughts and comments are most welcome. Wishing everyone a Happy New Year! Another year has come to an end, bringing with it many developments, both locally and internationally. Taking a brief look at the most significant events that dominated public discourse, media, and social media references, let’s start with the dominance of artificial intelligence. The term “dominance” might disturb some as it can be interpreted as a predetermined evolution. However, continuous research in machine learning, neural networks, and the automation arising from artificial intelligence has already started to affect and replace a significant portion of human work an...

Πώς τα crypto «έκαψαν» δυο τρισεκατομμύρια δολάρια σε 12 μήνες - Read HERE Regulating Crypto - Read HERE FTX is the latest cryptocurrency company this year to come under financial pressure as crypto assets have collapsed in value. Other failures include Celsius, a bank-like company that took in crypto deposits in exchange for yield, as well as an Asia-based hedge fund known as Three Arrows Capital - Read HERE Energy "hungry" EU, stocking up oil and gas for coming winter, means depriving energy resources for the developing world. The latter is already facing decreasing purchasing power as the strong dollar crushes their weakening internal national currencies. Because of Russia Ukraine war, EU goes after other international energy suppliers who prefer higher profit margins that the rich world can offer, than serving weak governments or poorer countries like Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Philippines. Climate change and environmental catastrophes add up to the economic hurdles of ...

Dear readers, I am totally overwhelmed with the quality and quantity of fake news and pseudo-science publications, news, and social media posts, amidst this global health crisis due to Covid-19. I believe that the knowledge generated by Big Data is the proper scientific answer to misinformation and propaganda. Read the graphs in real time, evaluate your sources, think, understand and filter out the noise and nonsense. Here's a list of valid sources to better track all the news and monitor your understanding of this virus: Coronavirus Live Updates :  https://ncov2019.live/?fbclid=IwAR2FVQM7Hr_iGGDod_bQsblgn--xmN-R7ukuvMHcJYrQ1spbB7LhZ-hgjag Coronavirus is our Future :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqw-9yMV0sI&fbclid=IwAR3nWroGRZl1aK7jeuc9U23M0QGGZtWKky8X6bXDTo0klj19AA1DBPczHPs A visual history of pandemics :  https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/a-visual-history-of-pandemics?fbclid=IwAR1gtkCgUOa19iZK0KviMa3rxj0borxb10Nt4wxdzGkYmuq6FRdPxrL2PHw word...

After Alibaba's IPO (2014), Saudi Aramco’s IPO is the biggest ever. Read the article HERE via The Economist

Dear readers, I know that you are used reading topics around business, media, arts, and economics in my blog but I consider this following interview very important because of the current global geopolitical dangers and the increasing nuclear arms race. People in power should act now. Our lives, the planet, civilization and the global economy would be totally destroyed if a nuclear war takes place.

Purchased this edition of ''Wealth of Nations'' (Adam Smith) by Wordsworth Editions. The cover immediately attracted me to buy this edition. Wordsworth Editions is the company founded in 1987 by Michael Trayler. There is a very interesting introduction by Mark G. Spencer (Brock University Canada) describing the background and the early years of Adam Smith. Adam Smith can be read many times and interpreted in many different ways by economists as the constant changes in the dynamics of our world nowadays bring this book in the spotlight as the base of theories on global trade and Laissez-Faire capitalism with its many challenges. You can buy the book here:  https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Nations-Wordsworth-Classics-Literature/dp/1840226889 -Stathis

I really enjoyed this film with Slavoj Zizek explaining how ideologies are built throughtout human history shaping the most violent eras and preparing whole generations to follow them blindly. Ideologies are not only the fetish of mad political leaders but can hide behind the stories of global brands and products that we consume or even in the advertising industry. Watch the film and share your thoughts.

Encouraged by upgrade, Greece plans 10-year bond issue. Click HERE to read more via Reuters.com

The following excerpt is from a paper on macroeconomics by Emi Nakamura and Jon Steinsson, Columbia University October 25, 2017: ''throughout the period between early 1930 and March 1933, the Fed failed to act and instead allowed the money supply to fall by large amounts and allowed a substantial fraction of the banking system to fail. Eichengreen (1992) argues that an important reason why the Fed did not act was that it felt constrained by the gold standard. The idea is that effective action almost surely would have been inconsistent with remaining on the gold standard and those that favored remaining on the gold standard prevailed until Roosevelt took office. One of President Roosevelt’s first policy actions was to take the US off the gold standard in April 1933. Industrial production immediately sky-rocketed. The weakness of this observation is that the Roosevelt administration, of course, changed a number of polices.'' Greece's economy is going throug...

The globally connected world is moving fast. Technology is everywhere, shaping our lives online and offline. The following trends are just the natural continuation of what has been happening in the world of tech the past few years. We can definitely spot an acceleration, market penetration and customer acceptance of new technologies. Some political and economic trends will also be discussed further down below. Smart homes using IoT (internet-of-things) have started being advertised on TV. Controlling your house through applications and interconnecting all devices will be the house of future, maybe closer than we think. What needs to be solved first is the protocol harmonization for the devices by various manufacturers. A standard protocol is needed so your house devices run smoothly when cooperating with each other thus securing the IoT system against external threats for example. AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) have already started going viral. Think Pokemon G...

Dear readers, I had some very interesting thoughts exchange with Silicon Valley's strategist Sheridan Tatsuno! I was lucky and honored to meet him in personal, attend his lectures, project set-ups & class discussion contributions, while studying at Jonkoping's International Business School in Sweden. Here's what he says about the next new thing happening around the globe right now... " The Next New Thing will be global networks where billions of smartphone users create new content (photos, videos, images, text, etc.) in unlimited new ways that we can’t even imagine right now, just as Internet developers created new Web businesses and groups that we couldn’t imagine at Stanford in 1993 before Mosaic and Yahoo! showed up. The future belongs to visionaries who find useful services and market needs, then build and share them . That’s the role of Silicon Valley Global Network: to connect emerging visionaries. The world really needs new companies and ...