Before the pandemic, maintaining a stubble (especially as a corporate worker) made a man look disheveled to his peers; the equivalent of going to a job interview with bed-head, or wearing shorts to Mass. But post-pandemic, this type of facial hair became beloved — even fashionable. Declining to clean-shave or commit to a full beard could be a conscious effort to reject the old normal or a refusal to move on. Read full article here
Societal Issues
AI Predicts Crime A Week In Advance With 90 Per Cent Accuracy
An artificial intelligence model built by Ishanu Chattopadhyay and his colleagues analysed crime data in Chicago from 2014 to 2016 and managed to predict future levels of crime down to the nearest 300 metres, a week before they actually happened. While extremely useful, this artificial intelligence has been shown to expose racial prejudice in law enforcement. Hopefully, as the study’s data and methodology have been made available for others to evaluate, these prejudices can be avoided in the next iteration. Read full article here