The proof, known to be so hard that a mathematician once offered 10 martinis to whoever could figure it out, uses number theory to explain quantum fractals. In 1974, five years before he wrote his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Douglas Hofstadter was a graduate student in physics at the University of Oregon. When his doctoral adviser went on sabbatical to Regensburg, Germany, Hofstadter tagged along, hoping to practice his German. The pair joined a group of brilliant theoretical physicists who were agonizing over a particular problem in quantum theory. They wanted to determine the energy levels of an electron in a crystal grid placed near a magnet. Hofstadter was the odd one out, unable to follow the others' line of thought. "Part of my luck was that I couldn't keep up with them," he said.

As a teenager, I discovered a worn copy of the book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter on a bookshelf at home. It still had a computer punch card in it that my Mom had used as a bookmark, back when she briefly worked as a programmer in the early 1980s. Reading that book was like falling into another world. I found myself thinking about the mind and computers in brand new ways. I learned about Alan Turing's work for the first time.

Melanie Mitchell is the Davis Professor of Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute, and Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University. Prof. Mitchell is the author of a number of interesting books such as Complexity: A Guided Tour and Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans. One interesting detail of her academic bio is that Douglas Hofstadter was her Ph.D. supervisor. During this 90 min interview with Melanie Mitchell, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: how she started in physics, went into math, and ended up in Computer Science; how Douglas Hofstadter became her Ph.D. supervisor; the biggest issues that humanity is facing today; my predictions of the biggest challenges of the next 100 days of the COVID19 pandemic; how to remain hopeful when it is hard to be optimistic; the problems in defining AI, thinking and human; the Turing Test and Ray Kurzweil's bet with Mitchell Kapor; the Technological Singularity and its possible timeline; the Fallacy of First Steps and the Collapse of AI; Marvin Minsky's denial of progress towards AGI; Hofstadter's fear that intelligence may turn out to be a set of "cheap tricks"; the importance of learning and interacting with the world; the [hard] problem of consciousness; why it is us who need to sort ourselves out and not rely on God or AI; complexity, the future and why living in "Uncertain Times" is an unprecented opportunity. Intelligence is a very complex phenomenon and we should study it as such.

Melanie Mitchell is the Davis Professor of Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute, and Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University. Prof. Mitchell is the author of a number of interesting books such as Complexity: A Guided Tour and Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans. One interesting detail of her academic bio is that Douglas Hofstadter was her Ph.D. supervisor. During this 90 min interview with Melanie Mitchell, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: how she started in physics, went into math, and ended up in Computer Science; how Douglas Hofstadter became her Ph.D. supervisor; the biggest issues that humanity is facing today; my predictions of the biggest challenges of the next 100 days of the COVID19 pandemic; how to remain hopeful when it is hard to be optimistic; the problems in defining AI, thinking and human; the Turing Test and Ray Kurzweil's bet with Mitchell Kapor; the Technological Singularity and its possible timeline; the Fallacy of First Steps and the Collapse of AI; Marvin Minsky's denial of progress towards AGI; Hofstadter's fear that intelligence may turn out to be a set of "cheap tricks"; the importance of learning and interacting with the world; the [hard] problem of consciousness; why it is us who need to sort ourselves out and not rely on God or AI; complexity, the future and why living in "Uncertain Times" is an unprecented opportunity. Intelligence is a very complex phenomenon and we should study it as such.

Last year's Cyber Monday was the biggest single shopping day in Amazon's 25 year history, but the company's success has led to problems for the country's recycling industry. The number of annual deliveries through the US Postal Service, Amazon's default delivery method, has doubled over the last decade, going from 3.1 billion in 2009 to 6.2 billion in 2018. The extraordinary growth of cardboard waste from shipping materials has been dubbed'the Amazon effect' at many waste removal and recycling companies. Waste management and recylcing firms have begun to call the enormous growth in packaging materials that end up in the trash as'the Amazon effect' According to a report in The Verge, corrugated cardboard accounts for close to half of the curbside recycling material in New York today, compared to just fifteen percent in 2003. The enormous increase in residential packaging materials has come at the worst possible time, as in 2018 China, formerly the world's largest recycler, began refusing shipments of recyclable cardboard from the US in instances where it was contaminated by .5 percent or more of other material.

Amazon will take the next step in its bid to take over the food delivery market with its own company-branded grocery stores. In a report from CNET, an Amazon spokesperson confirmed the company's intention to open the first-ever Amazon-branded grocery store in Los Angeles. While the company hasn't released many details, a job listing discovered by CNET suggest the store will be'Amazon's first grocery store' meaning it will likely carry the e-tailing giant's brand name. Amazon is making its first foray into company-branded grocery stores. The outlets will reportedly offer cheaper options compared to the Amazon-owned Whole Foods.

US Amazon Prime members can now benefit from free grocery deliveries within 1–2 hours as the online retail firm makes Amazon Fresh a standard benefit of the subscription. The Amazon Fresh service, that previously cost an extra 14.99 a month, allows users to order from thousands of products including meats, produce and snacks. Delivery times vary based on the customer's location, with one and two-hour deliveries available in more than 2,000 cities and towns across the US. Food orders will have to be at least $35, or $50 in New York, before they qualify for free delivery. Amazon Fresh is available outside of the US -- in parts of the UK, Germany and India, for example -- but Amazon has not yet said if the benefit will be launched globally.

Amazon is opening its doors wide to Prime customers in search of faster shipping in an effort to eat up more of the traditional retail market. According to a report from Recode, the e-commerce giant has removed restrictions on its products that forbade customers from utilizing one-day shipping on items less than $5. Prime customers will be now able to select one-day shipping on products that cost as little as $1, making routine trips to convenience stores that much less convenient. While Amazon has long-sold products like deodorant, dental floss, and other household items on its platform, the restriction on price meant its users were usually required to buy those items in a larger set or tack them onto orders with other items through the company's'add-on' program. Recode notes, however, that Amazon's'add-on' program has been slowly phased out in recent months, essentially paving the way for a new ere of single-use shopping. Now, with the restrictions lifted, customers will be able to not only buy those items individually, but have them delivered imminently to their doorstep.

"People underestimate how complex intelligence is." How close are we to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)? It seems we take a step closer to that reality with every breakthrough. And yet, it feels like a million miles away in the future. Why are we still so distant from AGI despite the unabated rise in computational hardware? What's holding us back from programming machines that generalize to multiple domains?

The phrase'deal of a lifetime' tends to get thrown around a lot, but a few keen deal-seekers during Amazon's prime day may have actually found it. Due to a pricing glitch, Amazon shoppers have reported being able to buy high-end camera equipment that retails at as much as $13,000, for just $100 or less. One user, posting on Reddit under the name SoccerMomDeals, said they spent $500 on $65,000 worth of camera lenses. On the discount forum Slickdeals, waves of users reported news of their plunder, which included items like the Sony Alpha a6000 Mirrorless Digital Camera with a 16-50 mm lens, marked down from $550 to just $94. Camera gear markdowns had shoppers scrambling to order merchandise for Amazon caught on to what appears to be a pricing glitch.