The 2025 Washington plane crash showed that air traffic control is run by people not numbers. On the day, only one air traffic control worker was managing the Reagan National Airport tower – a job normally done by two people – which meant they were unable to co-ordinate all relevant departures safely. In fact a separate analysis has shown that 90% of all US airport towers are understaffed.
Technology
Amazon Fresh stores allow customers to purchase items without checking out – supposedly using built-in sensors to track what they’re buying. In reality, as we now know, purchases are manually monitored by hundreds of Amazon employees.
Amazon’s AI recruitment tool only served to highlight existing prejudice, downgrading female CVs because they were historically less successful. The tool was scrapped in 2018.
If you look past the hype, BeReal is actually pretty niche: it has 2 million users in the UK, far less than Pinterest or even Nextdoor, and 70% of them are 18-24.
ChatGPT gradually spits out information as if it was thinking and responding in real time. In reality, the code was instantly ready when you clicked the prompt – but it presents the illusion of effort.
ChatGPT may dominate conversations on LinkedIn, but it’s still relatively niche: even among 18-24s, its biggest audience, only a quarter use it at least weekly.
The China playbook: go from bottom to top in a matter of years.
Citigroup accidentally credited a client account with $81 trillion instead of $280. The system requires employees to manually enter the transaction, but (bizarrely) the amount field comes pre-populated with 15 zeros – which the employee forgot to delete. (Thankfully the error was quickly spotted and rectified, not that Citigroup could afford that payment anyway.)
In a large scale study across OECD countries, 26% of the adult population were unable to use a computer – a stark reminder that your audience is not always like you.
Dating apps have come full circle. Their latest offer is in person meet ups.
The 2019 Nissan Dynamo was the first fully electric cab in London… since 1897, when Walter Bersey launched his fleet of battery powered taxis. Unfortunately, the weight of the batteries caused a significant amount of wear and tear on the tyres and the fleet was withdrawn within two years.
The answer to health eating lies in defaults. An Oxford University study shows that simply putting healthy meals at the top of delivery app menus results in people ordering 200 fewer calories per meal. On the other hand, real world data shows that calorie labels on restaurant menus have virtually zero impact on behaviour.
In 1776 James Watt needed a simple way to explain the power of his improved steam engine. So he framed it in familiar terms, claiming that one of his improved steam engines could produce enough power to replace 10 cart-pulling horses, or 10 ‘horsepower’ . In doing so he made the term a standard measure of engine power still used today.
When Steve Jobs introduced the first iPod to the world, he didn’t say: “the iPod. A 5GB MP3 player”. He said, “the iPod. 1,000 songs in your pocket.”
When Thomas Edison created the light bulb, he presented the unfamiliar technology in familiar terms. He set the power of the electric bulb at 13W – almost the same as the gas lamp – even though it was able to go brighter, and he copied the gas lamp tradition of using light shades, even though these were superfluous – their original purpose was to stop the gas flame guttering in the wind.