And what say the computer?

Three-time Formula 1 world champion Sir Jack Brabham, who won the title in a car he built himself, has died aged 88. The Australian driver, who was knighted in 1979, won the championship in 1959, 1960, and 1966. His last win in 1966 was achieved in a car of his own construction, the rear-engined BT19. He remains the only man in history to have designed, built, and driven a championship-winning car. His career coincided with those of other Formula 1 legends, notably Stirling Moss, Jim Clark, and Jackie Stewart. Brabham was never considered to have the natural talent of those rivals, but he earned a reputation as a tough uncompromising competitor and his career success surpassed all his contemporaries bar Stewart and Juan Manuel Fangio, with whom Brabham only briefly overlapped. But no-one wins three world titles against drivers like that - in addition to the likes of John Surtees, Dan Gurney, and Tony Brooks - without being pretty special themselves. But there is now something just as special to bring up tonight: a venture capital firm has appointed a computer algorithm to its board of directors. The program - called Vital - will vote on whether to invest in a specific company or not. The firm it will be working for - Deep Knowledge Ventures - focuses on drugs for age-related diseases. It said that Vital would make its recommendations by sifting through large amounts of data. The algorithm looks at a range of data when making decisions - including financial information, clinical trials for particular drugs, intellectual property owned by the firm, and previous funding. That all seems well and good, but the computer is still only one vote. Unless, of course, all the human votes are cast aside and the computer given the final say on each matter.