"CNNs are a special kind of multi-layer neural networks. Like almost every other neural network they are trained with a version of the back-propagation algorithm. Where they differ is in the architecture.

In this episode of the McKinsey on Insurance podcast series, we discuss how insurtechs are driving innovation and disruption in the insurance industry. Experts from four different regions weigh in on rising valuations, threats and opportunities for incumbents, and the long-term outlook of insurtech. An edited transcript of the conversation follows. For more conversations from McKinsey on Insurance, our podcast series about the trends, disruptions, and strategies that are reshaping the insurance industry today, subscribe to the series on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. Pradip Patiath: Welcome, everybody, to McKinsey on Insurance. I'm a senior partner in Chicago, and I'll be hosting today's conversation on the state of insurtech and what it means for the future. I'm joined by Tanguy Catlin, a senior partner in our Boston office; Alex Kimura, a partner based in Singapore; and Simon Kaesler, a partner in our Frankfurt office. So we have global perspectives on the important topic of insurtechs, which are tech-driven insurance companies that take advantage of new technologies to provide coverage or to reinvent business systems in this digital era. Insurtechs are certainly extending innovation throughout the sector. We've seen something similar in other sectors as well--such as healthcare, retail, and banking.

'Gutfeld!' panel weighs in on China's response to the statement This is a rush transcript of "Gutfeld" on October 22, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. Bad things are happening, but it's OK because we're all in this together. What did we get from Joe? An incoherent jumble of memories and confused looks. What the hell was that? JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Forty percent of all products coming into the United States of America on the West Coast go through Los Angeles and -- what am I doing here? COOPER: Do you have plans to visit the southern border? BIDEN: I've been there before and I haven't -- I mean, I know it well. I guess I should go down. But what you see is wages are actually up. I have the freedom to kill you. My guess is you'll start to see gas prices come down as we get by -- and going into the winter. I mean, excuse me, and then next year in 2022. I must tell you, I don't have a near-term answer. Well, that was the opposite of comforting. It seems his only strategy is to deflect from our current misery to promising more misery. Angelo Negri was from memory ranch. And she came up to me one day when I was -- when they just had announced that I had flown one million some X number of miles on Air Force aircraft. And asked, she comes up and I'm getting in the car and he goes, Joey baby, what do you do?

As the sports betting industry is gaining steam, I am interested in selling NBA spread picks to sports bettors via subscription to my service. I will use regression models to predict outcomes of NBA games. My goal is to make a prediction on the spreads (point differential) of each game, and use that information to bet against the Vegas spread. Because Vegas typically takes a 10% rake for each bet, I have to be able to beat Vegas 52.5% of the time in order to be profitable. My data was collected via scraping, using Beautiful Soup, basketball-reference.com and sportsbookreviewonline.com, using data from all regular season games from 2011–2020, which includes 11,656 games.

The 2021 edition of the State of AI Report came out last week. So did the Kaggle State of Machine Learning and Data Science Survey. There's much to be learned and discussed in these reports, and a couple of takeaways caught my attention. "AI is increasingly being applied to mission critical infrastructure like national electric grids and automated supermarket warehousing calculations during pandemics. However, there are questions about whether the maturity of the industry has caught up with the enormity of its growing deployment."

Whether protecting against surges on electric networks, locating designs amongst previous criminal offenses, or even improving sources in the treatment of significantly bad people, Duke University computer system expert Cynthia Rudin desires expert system (AI) to reveal its own job. When it is actually creating choices that profoundly impact individuals's lifestyles, particularly. " I would like to give thanks to AAAI and also Squirrel AI for making this honor that I understand will definitely be actually a game-changer for the area," Rudin pointed out. "To possess a'Nobel Prize' for artificial intelligence to assist culture creates it ultimately crystal clear undeniably that this subject matter -- AI help the advantage for community -- is really significant." Dark container designs are actually the contrast of Rudin's straightforward codes.

The Delta variant of the coronavirus spread to more countries in recent weeks, and the total number of cases officially logged soared past half a million per day. The global number of deaths is now about two-thirds as high as it was at the peak of the previous wave, in April of this year. As the virus spreads, the potential rises for a vaccine-resistant strain to emerge. Meanwhile, in poorer countries, vaccines are scarce, and most populations are little protected (exhibit).

Teresa Carey: This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. Every morning at five o'clock, composer Walter Werzowa would sit down at his computer to anticipate a particular daily e-mail. It came from six time zones away, where a team had been working all night (or day, rather) to draft Beethoven's unfinished 10th Symphony--almost two centuries after his death. The e-mail contained hundreds of variations, and Werzowa listened to them all. Carey: Werzowa was listening for the perfect tune--a sound that was unmistakably Beethoven.

In the run up to Dreamforce 2021 in September, Salesforce announced new capabilities for Einstein Automate as well as new AI-driven workflows and RPA capabilities for Service Cloud . Prior to Dreamforce 2021, I had a chance to talk with Clara Shih, CEO of Service Cloud at Salesforce, about how the cloud-based software company sees automation and AI transforming, and actually humanizing, customer service. The following is a transcript of our interview, edited for readability. So let's talk automation, AI, RPA and how that relates to the Service Cloud and how that's kind of changing how organizations approach their interactions with their customers. Because I know that automation is a large part of many organization's digital transformation processes.

Cynthia Rudin, professor of computer science at Duke University, USA, has become the second recipient of the AAAI Squirrel AI Award. She was awarded the 2022 prize for pioneering scientific work in the area of interpretable and transparent AI systems in real-world deployments, the advocacy for these features in highly sensitive areas such as social justice and medical diagnosis, and serving as a role model for researchers and practitioners. Cynthia has worked on a variety of research topics during her career. The first applied project used machine learning to predict which manholes in New York City were at risk of exploding due to degrading and overloaded electrical circuitry. An area of particular focus for Cynthia is interpretable machine learning, which she has applied in different settings.