The Best of This Week From the Editors

A secret, pre-CIA field manual for sabotaging enemy organizations during WWII identified two ways of undermining an organization: physical damage (think: pulling out wires and destroying equipment) and human obstruction of processes (think: all the dysfunctional habits companies still struggle with today). When he shares the list of sabotaging tactics with executives today, HBS professor Stefan Thomke finds "that their reaction usually starts with laughter ('I see this in my company.'), Up until last Wednesday, the answer was probably "no." In fact, for years, even the most sophisticated AI systems have been unable to match the language and logic skills students are expected to have mastered before entering high school. But last week (just in time for back to school), the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence announced big news about its new system, Aristo -- it passed.