Bookmarks (568)

Why did I deepfake myself? To see if conversing with an AI-generated version of myself can lead to self-reflection, new insights into my thought patterns, and deep truths. pic.twitter.com/DWODoZ9lXL — Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman) April 24, 2024 The post It’s happening, Reid Hoffman AI twin edition, wwrgs? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Gridlock. Rene Girard! by TCCIn reply to Swami. It...

1. U.S. vs. Taiwanese work culture. 2. Albert Wensemius and the rise of Singapore. 3. Unusual questions answered by Megan McArdle. 4. Why Panama dollarized. 5. New open access book on prices and games by Michael Richter and Ariel Rubinstein. 6. Canada now limiting immigration. 7. “In the fiscal year 2023, more than half of […] The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on...

Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses just got a massive Multimodal upgrade – Meta AI with Vision It doesn't just take speech input, it can now answer questions about what you are seeing. Here are 8 features that is now possible 1. Ask about what you are seeing pic.twitter.com/IJQ3WuZMAJ — Min Choi (@minchoi) April 24, 2024 The post Imagine recording and storing everything you read appeared...

By Rohit Krishnan, he and I are both interested in the question of what LLMs cannot do, and why.  Here is one excerpt: It might be best to say that LLMs demonstrate incredible intuition but limited intelligence. It can answer almost any question that can be answered in one intuitive pass. And given sufficient training data […] The post What can LLMs never do? appeared...

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, basically you should charge them fees rather than discourage them through other means>  Here is one excerpt: By this reasoning, the Japanese decision to raise bullet train prices for tourists is exactly the right approach. In the meantime, the Japanese government, which faces high pension costs, […] The post What is the proper policy toward...

1. AI Camera turns your images into poetry. 2. Highly capable model locally on your phone. 3. Clara Piano reviews GOAT.  “Perhaps, in his emphasis on the importance of ideas, Cowen reveals that he is ultimately a Simonian. After all, the human mind is the ultimate resource.” 4. Market liberalism, Chinese style. 5. Red flags for […] The post More Tuesday links appeared first on...

In an excellent, deep-dive Alice Evans looks at patriarchy in Egypt using pictures drawn from four thousand years of history. Here are three examples. A wealthy woman, shown at right circa 116 CE. Unveiled, immodest, looking out at the world. A person to be reckoned with. After the Arab conquests, pictures of people in general […] The post Four Thousand Years of Egyptian Women...

1. A literalist reading of Civil War. 2. Why it is so hard to get a reservation nowadays (New Yorker). 3. “There are currently 682 #AI-related bills (581 of them in the states) on the @MultiStateAssoc legislative tracker.”  Link here. 4. The econometrics of social media and mental health.  And more on the same.  A […] The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on...

Several common measures — like employing a chief diversity officer, offering diversity training or having a diverse board — were not correlated with decreased discrimination in entry-level hiring, the researchers found. But one thing strongly predicted less discrimination: a centralized H.R. operation. The researchers recorded the voice mail messages that the fake applicants received. When a company’s […] The post Hiring discrimination sentences to ponder appeared...

Forthcoming from the QJE, here is a new paper by Andrea Matanga: The Neolithic revolution saw the independent development of agriculture among at least seven unconnected hunter-gatherer populations. I propose that the rapid spread of agricultural techniques resulted from increased climatic seasonality causing hunter-gatherers to adopt a sedentary lifestyle and store food for the season […] The post Seasonality and the Invention of Agriculture...

1. Are Indian women stronger relative supporters of Modi? 2. Apple to build on-device AI? 3. The remarkable economic recovery of Sri Lanka?. 4. “UK alcohol-related deaths up one-third on pre-pandemic levels…” (FT) 5. New Cass Sunstein book on campus free speech. 6. The Straussian approach to the new Taylor Swift. 7. Macro Musings podcast […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

Take a look at how the number of federal regulations and policies governing research at universities has dramatically increased over the years. This adding an enormous cost of doing research. (Source COGR) pic.twitter.com/ezqAsLUIIj — Denis Wirtz (@deniswirtz) April 20, 2024 Via Matt Yglesias. The post Deregulate our universities appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsJust replace “healthcare” and “hospital” with “higher ... by JK...

Dobbs, of course, was the Supreme Court decision saying that the constitution does not provide a right to abortion, thus leading to restrictions on abortion in many states. The pictures is from The Economist, the original paper is here. The post Tying the Knot appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Mark Bahner. Cool. You play “Most National ... by mikeInThe716In reply...

These are usually worth pondering, as at the very least you will learn something.  Here is a hate-worthy paragraph from an earlier Bloomberg column of mine: …note that higher real estate prices, to the extent they result from immigrant demands, largely translate into capital gains for homeowners — most of whom are native-born. To be […] The post Arguments that (almost) everyone hates appeared...

If someone demographically normal and not especially at-risk wants to serve as a guinea pig, what is the optimal allocation of that resource? Is there any formal discussion of this question? I know they say “there is always an Effective Altruism blog post,” but is there? Mostly I have medicine and medical experimentation in mind, […] The post Guinea pig questions appeared first on...

1. Rasheed Griffith reggae playlist. 2. Poland got rid of compulsory homework for grade school. 3. Suicide rate trends for German teen females. 4. Important job ad for finding and cultivating talent in Brazil, no Portuguese required. 5. Plans for the REPO market? 6. Claims about microwave missiles, speculative. 7. Abundance Institute. The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         Comments#6...

The amazing Gukesh (17 years old!)  is half a point ahead with one round remaining today.  Three players — Nakamura, Caruana, and Nepo — trail him by half a point.  Naka is playing Gukesh, and of course Naka will try to win.  But what about Caruana vs. Nepo?  Yes, each must try to win (no […] The post The game theory of the final...

He is one of the greatest of living American historians, here is from Wikipedia: Alan Shaw Taylor (born June 17, 1955) is an American historian and scholar who is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia. A specialist in the early history of the United States, Taylor has written extensively about the colonial […] The post What should I ask Alan Taylor?...

That is the new Daron Acemoglu paper, and he is skeptical about its overall economic effects.  Here is part of the abstract: Using existing estimates on exposure to AI and productivity improvements at the task level, these macroeconomic effects appear nontrivial but modest—no more than a 0.71% increase in total factor productivity over 10 years. […] The post “The Simple Macroeconomics of AI” appeared...

Two economists from the Harvard Growth Lab (Shah and Sturzenegger) estimate that the average transport costs for those who are employed in South Africa is equal to 57% of net wages when time to commute is accounted for. Here is the whole John McDermott tweet storm, in part that is the spatial legacy from the […] The post South Africa fact of the day...

1. Ross Douthat on whether the internet is the enemy of progress (NYT). 2. “This year, Sara and Justin Ilse finished building a floor for their home’s 230-square-foot entryway out of 65,507 pennies.” (WSJ) 3. Commentary on Zuck and Dwarkesh. 4. New open access book on Moonshots and the New Industrial Policy. 5. The decline […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

Maybe, but maybe not: Amid the current U.S.-China technological race, the U.S. has imposed export controls to deny China access to strategic technologies. We document that these measures prompted a broad-based decoupling of U.S. and Chinese supply chains. Once their Chinese customers are subject to export controls, U.S. suppliers are more likely to terminate relations […] The post Decoupling from China? appeared first on...

I saw the film as having very definite politics, and yes I am aware of the pronouncements of the director — ignore them!  I am writing about the movie, what was on the screen. The seceding states — California, Texas, and Florida — all have substantial Latino population segments.  The core political message is that […] The post The politics of *Civil War* (full...

The post Dwarkesh interviews Mark Zuckerberg on Llama 3 and more appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Anon. I agree by BlixyIn reply to Naveen K. I don't think he , personally is that ... by mentoAre you updating yet? If you aren't, are you buying Nvidia? by jason yIn reply to maybe. He is a dimwit. I’ve always felt that...

1. Andrej Karpathy on Llama 3. 2. The PEN awards are on the brink of collapse. 3. These were my fiscal, political and other predictions from 2010. 4. AI is being integrated into social media — now.  Social media will change. 5. New Yorker Music critic Alex Ross cites Fischer Black on noise. 6. How […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on...

When I post about the skyrocketing price of housing and the need to build, commentators (include some of the most astute commentators on MR), will sometimes object by pointing to the increasing and historically high number of houses per capita. They question how this aligns with rising prices and wave vaguely towards factors like monopoly […] The post Why a Housing Shortage Exists Despite...

With a group of friends I was having a chat about the merits of the current vs. past America.  Battle of the Ancients and Moderns!  I generally favor current times, but not unconditionally.  So I promised them a list of what I missed from the past.  To be clear, these are personal judgments, not claims […] The post What I am nostalgic about appeared...

All of this is from Devin Pope, in response to Lyman Stone (and myself).  Here was my original post on the paper, concerning the degree of religious attendance.  I won’t double indent, but here is Devin and Devin alone: “I’m super grateful for Lyman’s willingness to engage with my recent research on measuring religious worship […] The post Response from Devin Pope, on religious...

Latin American immigrants are starting businesses at more than twice the rate of the U.S. population as a whole. The jump in Latino entrepreneurship has driven up the overall share of new businesses owned by immigrants, who accounted for 36% of launches last year compared with 25% in 2019, according to a new analysis of […] The post U.S.A. fact of the day appeared...

The craziest LLaMA 3 reveal: The 400B+ version of the model is **on par with Claude 3 Opus**, and it's still training. Soon, we'll have a better-than-Opus, fully open-source model. The implications are huge. pic.twitter.com/chaDp7jaCa — Matt Shumer (@mattshumer_) April 18, 2024 Here is from Meta. The post Claims about claims (it’s happening) appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Brendan Long....

1. Interview with Ulrike Malmendier, a regional thinker in the best sense of the term. 2. “Paying Off People’s Medical Debt Has Little Impact on Their Lives, Study Finds.” (NYT)  Model that. 3. Another look at suicide rates. 4. Should you have privacy rights to your brainwaves? (NYT)  And should you have the right to […] The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on...

Only rarely: Recent social movements stand out by their spontaneous nature and lack of stable leadership, raising doubts on their ability to generate political change. This article provides systematic evidence on the effects of protests on public opinion and political attitudes. Drawing on a database covering the quasi-universe of protests held in the United States, […] The post Do protests matter? appeared first on...

Here is the audio, video, and transcript, along with almost thirty minutes of audience questions, filmed in Miami.  Here is the episode summary: Tyler and Peter Thiel dive deep into the complexities of political theology, including why it’s a concept we still need today, why Peter’s against Calvinism (and rationalism), whether the Old Testament should […] The post My excellent Conversation with Peter Thiel...

Sometimes I feel like focusing on policies that only affect growth rates by a few tenths of a percentage point feels small. But then I remind myself that the difference between the United States and Argentina over the last 120 years was 0.5 percentage point. pic.twitter.com/Pd6SIg1FwS — Jason Furman (@jasonfurman) April 17, 2024 The post Economic growth sentences to ponder, Argentina fact of the...

1. Lyman Stone criticizes the Pope paper on church attendance.  Good criticisms, see also the points by Sure and others in the comment section.  This paper doesn’t seem to hold up?  I’ll gladly publish a response by the author, otherwise a withdrawal might be in order? 2. Good critique of the AGI concept.  And AI […] The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on...

President Biden has made a big deal of simplifying fees: The FTC is proposing a rule that…would ban businesses from charging hidden and misleading fees and require them to show the full price up front. The rule would also require companies disclose up front whether fees are refundable. This would mean no more surprise resort fees […] The post Why is the Biden Administration Against...

…residents of La Salut neighbourhood in Barcelona are celebrating a move to wipe themselves off the map. For years, residents had complained that they could not get home because the number 116 bus was always crammed with tourists visiting Antoni Gaudí’s Park Güell. The park is the city’s second most popular attraction after the Sagrada Familia basilica. […] The post Barcelona escalates its role in the...

That is the subject of my latest Bloomberg column.  Here is one excerpt: The Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises is having a moment, especially in Latin America. Argentine President Javier Milei admires Mises, and he has adopted some Misesian ideas, such as the notion that “the middle of the road leads to socialism.” Milei used to be an academic […] The post The Ludwig von Mises comeback appeared...

Sociology and Classical Liberalism in Dialogue: Freedom is Something We Do Together https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781666961331/Sociology-and-Classical-Liberalism-in-Dialogue-Freedom-is-Something-We-Do-Together  Direct link to pdf: https://rowman.com/WebDocs/SociologyLiberalism.pdf The post Charlotta Stern and Fabio Rojas appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to dearieme. “Looking after neighbours” seems ... by MIn reply to Anti-Gnostic. To take it a short, happy step ... by Anti-GnosticIn reply to Evolutionist. “Reminiscent of a certain British ......

“I have one partner now with three kids. He is transmasc, and he’s radical about the way he raises them. They’re radically home-schooled. They’re 17 and nonbinary, 6 and 5. They know everything in age-appropriate ways. They’ve seen their mommy undergo the transmasc experience, seen their mom become who they really are.” 5 and 6!  […] The post Does the NYT not recognize child...

From a recent paper: We bring novel data to bear on these questions, presenting the largest empirical study of private security to date. We introduce an administrative dataset covering nearly 300,000 licensed private security officers in the State of Florida. By linking this dataset to similarly comprehensive information about public law enforcement, we have, for […] The post Data on private security forces appeared...

1. Paul Christiano appointed to USG Head of AI Safety. 2. Further worries about the anti-cavity thing.  I don’t pretend to know the answers here, but this has not been thought through well enough.  And SSC update. 3. Fritz Peterson, RIP, MIE.  Very 1970s. 4. The economic research policymakers actually need. 5. Doris Day: A […] The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on...

Thus, approximately 1 out of 7 people who I classify as a Latter-day Saint attends [religious service] weekly. And: However, only 5% of Americans attend services “weekly”, far fewer than the ~22% who report to do so in surveys. Oh, and this: The religions with the longest average visit duration are Orthodox Christians (116 minutes), […] The post LDS and indeed USA fact of...

Here is a very good article by Ronald Bailey of Reason magazine.  Excerpt: The contours of the new progress movement stretch from the Human Progress project at the libertarian Cato Institute to the “eco-modernist” initiatives at the Breakthrough Institute and the Pritzker Innovation Fund. Four relatively new groups at the forefront of the pro-progress forces […] The post The progress in Progress Studies appeared...

…at least half of a population of ten million depend on the state in some way—35% are retirees, 10% government workers, and another 5% receive either unemployment benefits or integration benefits. They would see a country with less youth than they once saw; they would see what is in fact, after Italy, the second-oldest country in […] The post A portrait of Portugal appeared first...

1. Should we change species to save them? (NYT) 2. Mechanical watch. 3. Why is it called Martingale? And “With French under fire, Mali uses AI to bring local language to students.” 4. McDonald’s new marketing: Billboards that smell like its French fries. 5. Erwin Dekker on the history of economic thought. 6. Strawberries and the […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

A record number of drugs are in shortage across the United States. In any particular case, it’s difficult to trace out the exact causes of the shortage but health care is the US’s most highly regulated, socialist industry and shortages are endemic under socialism so the pattern fits. The shortage of Adderall and other ADHD […] The post The Adderall Shortage: DEA versus FDA...

Our primary concern in this chapter will be Iran, though toward the end we will shift the focus to Central Asia.  We can best begin with a first-order approximation of the pattern of Iranian history across the whole period.  It has four major features.  The first is the survival of something called Iran, as both […] The post Michael Cook on Iran appeared first...

“Name three famous people who all share the exact same birth date and year.” Usually it fails, the most common failure being it names someone with the correct date but the incorrect year.  Telling it to “reason step by step” is no panacea either.  And if you want to make it harder, ask for more […] The post GPT-4-Turbo still doesn’t answer this question...

1. Austrian economist Walter Block is now a columnist for Israel Hayom. 2. Progress against dengue. 3. Faith Ringgold, RIP (NYT). 4. The world of competitive quizzing (NYT).  Good piece. 5. Post-fight interview, with profanity, and Mises. 6. U.S. homicide rates are plummeting (WSJ). The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         Comments1. Is Walter still defending the undefendable here? by...