BIG Exclusives

When ChatGPT creates your next dinner party menu or Claude develops a marketing plan for your business, there is a single mathematical mechanism working behind the scenes that determines every recommendation, every strategic insight, and every apparent moment of "understanding”. It is called the attention mechanism, and despite its fundamental importance to modern AI, most people – including many business leaders making multimillion-dollar AI investments – have no idea how it actually works. This is...

In the first article in this series, I divided natural resources into four categories: Subsurface energy resources – oil, natural gas, coal, radioactive energy minerals and geothermal heat Other subsurface resources – minerals (critical and non-critical) Water and land resources – oceans, lakes, and land Resources above ground – solar and wind energy Having examined the first group to start the week (Part 1 – subsurface energy resources), my focus shifts to #2: other...

New advancements in artificial intelligence have a lot of us asking the question: “Can computers think?” I think the answer is currently no, though they might achieve this at some point in the distant future. Meanwhile, humans have achieved a state that I will call the “beehive brain”, where the written thoughts of all of humanity can be quickly assimilated and analyzed, producing a result that looks very much like thinking. The big difference between a...

Humanity distinguishes itself from other species by intellect, innovation, and technology – but we cannot survive and thrive on brainpower alone. We need natural resources to translate our ideas to products that benefit humanity. To help understand the wide variety of natural resources and their associated issues, benefits, and challenges, I am considering them in four categories: Subsurface energy resources – oil, natural gas, coal, radioactive energy minerals, and geothermal heat Other subsurface resources...

We have all read articles from enthusiastic environmentalists and climate-conscious political leaders promoting vastly increased hydrogen use. They claim that more hydrogen production and consumption – especially green hydrogen – is essential in order to reduce fossil fuel consumption, advancing the energy transition to net zero and addressing climate change. Is hydrogen, grey or green, a technically and economically feasible replacement for fossil fuels such as gasoline and natural gas? How much of what we...

The $63-million prediction machine Today's artificial intelligence has reached an inflection point that few truly understand. When ChatGPT writes a poem, Claude solves a complex problem, or GPT-4 appears to reason through scientific questions, it feels like we have crossed into genuine machine intelligence. The responses are coherent, contextual, and often brilliant enough to fool experts in specialized fields. But here is what the tech companies do not want you to fully grasp: these systems do...

Humanity is in the midst of profound change, transition and crisis. Not really news, you might say; this has been the case for Homo sapiens ever since they appeared on Earth hundreds of thousands of years ago. But the pace and magnitude of our transitions and crises have greatly increased with more than 8 billion people alive today, all of them striving to live comfortable, energy-intensive modern lifestyles. Rapidly advancing technologies supported by cheap and...

From the First Gulf War until present, we have witnessed what seems like perpetual war in the Middle East and West Asia. The rapid escalation of conflict across the greater Middle East, from Syria to India, since the October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel by Hamas-controlled Palestinian forces has set the stage for widespread and largely undeclared war. Nothing speaks to the ambiguity of this state of war better than the fact that United States...

Measles outbreaks in Canada, the United States, and elsewhere have been the subject of numerous recent reports. Although these outbreaks are limited in size, measles is a serious disease – especially for children – and outbreaks are taken seriously by health officials and afforded significant attention and surveillance. It is natural and reasonable to ask why these outbreaks have occurred. We explore the issue and accountability for measles outbreaks by considering both technical and...

Key takeaways South Africa has overtaken Nigeria as Africa’s largest importer of refined petroleum products, driven by idled local refining capacity and surging demand. Nigeria’s fuel imports have declined due to the startup of the Dangote Refinery and the removal of gasoline subsidies, but its refining capacity utilization can still improve. Egypt quietly leads in refinery efficiency, maintaining the highest utilization rate among Africa’s top three economies despite rising import dependence. Across Nigeria, South...