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- Marginal Revolution Read
Astra Held Its Ground (Truth)
TheoPhysEval: We present a suite of 50 unpublished research-level theoretical physics problems with verifiable answers. Without AI assistance, a typical problem in our collection could be solved by a world expert in about a day or less but would take considerably longer for experts in adjacent specialties. We test the ability of off-the-shelf AI agents
- Marginal Revolution Read
Why I do not use LLMs more
They are so very, very good at matching me to the books I wish to read and the music I wish to listen to. In this odd sense they are not very sticky. The LLMs are amazing, but the world is awesome too! Thus the LLMs keep on sending me away. There is quality travel as well.
- Marginal Revolution Read
My excellent Conversation with Liaquat Ahamed
Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is part of the episode summary: They start with that puzzle before moving through Gladstone’s startlingly self-interested bet on Egyptian bonds, Bismarck’s role in destroying bimetallism and deflating the world economy for two decades, whether a global silver or symmetallic standard could have worked, Britain’s fateful decision
- Marginal Revolution Read
China fact (?) of the day
A monograph by Yi Fuxian, a University of Wisconsin-Madison demographer and longtime critic of China’s population policies, argues that China’s actual population may be closer to 1.27 billion—not the 1.4 billion officially reported. The gap would be as much as 130 million people, roughly the population of Mexico. And Yi argues the distortion has warped
- Marginal Revolution Read
Wednesday assorted links
1. Planets more habitable than Earth? (NYT) 2. Those new service sector jobs: “Cambiar de vida: cómo irte a contar pingüinos en la Antártida por hasta 2500 euros al mes.” 3. AI song about the China Shock debate. 4. “An amusing result of this new survey is that Democratic-voting workers had a startlingly high net-favorable view of Socialism while also saying that taxes were too high and they oppose government ownership stakes in companies.” 5. “Fewer then 5 innovations could return 1920s era growth.” 6.
- Marginal Revolution Read
Plunder: The Last of the War in Europe, 1945
By Max Hastings, an excellent book, I benefited from every page. One recurring theme is simply how hard the Germans fought on the way down, and how unusual that behavior was. Here is one interesting passage of many: In World War I, 150 German soldiers were sentenced to death for serious crimes, of which a
- Marginal Revolution Read
Well-planned African immigration to America will go fine
That is the topic of my latest Free Press column, here is one excerpt: The good news is that African immigrants already have done well in the United States. For instance, 46 percent of African immigrants complete a college education, well above the immigrant average of 36 percent and the native-born American rate of 37
- Marginal Revolution Read
Perry Mehrling, RIP
He and I were in the same Harvard class together, and spent a good deal of time talking economics together. We also were (briefly) bridge partners in a few games. I was a big fan of his book on Fischer Black. I am very sorry to see him gone.
- Marginal Revolution Read
Tuesday assorted links
1. Jon Hartley on Bob Hall. And Chad Jones on Bob Hall. 2. Nicholas Decker on who might have won the prize. 3. Koyama tribute to Wickam. 4. A parallel AI adjudication track? 5. Kevin Kelly on swarm intelligence. 6. What each country read on Wikipedia yesterday. 7. Is MIT economics good at talent evaluation?
- Marginal Revolution Read
Is Your Agent a Double Agent?
In the Manchurian Candidate a sleeper agent who has been brain-trained appears normal until a secret phrase–“Why don’t you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?”–triggers a state of hypnosis and control by the attackers. Connor Tabarrok, now with the AI safety firm Equistamp, has an excellent post on how this same technique can
- Marginal Revolution Read
Lost Worlds
The author is Patrick Wyman, and the subtitle is How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World. An excellent book, it is a survey of (mostly) pre-Sumerian times, what we know about them, and how we have learned a lot lately. It is easy to read, yet the author properly stresses the complexity of the topic, for instance we often find agricultural and non-agricultural societies intermingling with each other and in close contact, in those cases the lines cannot be so easily drawn. Excerpt:
- Marginal Revolution Read
“I have no mouth and I must scream”
Worth a reread, here is a new report from the front: Our experiments suggest that small AI models may be months away from being capable enough to self-replicate on commercial IoT devices, like smart ovens and off-brand Android TV boxes. A replicator like this would be challenging to shut down, since there’s no centralized point to shut off – though it may be slow (with a doubling time of days). Unlike non-AI malware, it could also figure out unfamiliar devices on its own.
- Marginal Revolution Read
Monday assorted links
1. The cloud and economic concentration, the endgame? 2. Industrial policy for drones? 3. Samir Varma on AI and Linnaeus. 4. Pan-African Review. 5. A worldview different from mine. 6. John Cochrane on the Nobel. The post
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Michael Woodford, Nobel Laureate
I think of Michael Woodford as the kind of economist who studies something very specific very intensively and tries to get it just right. But in his case he is not studying something small and irrelevant, he is studying “monetary policy.” I think of him as the economist who put monetary policy and “monetarism” —
- Marginal Revolution Read
Robert Hall, Nobel Laureate
Alex has already covered this, I will add a few remarks. First, every Bob Hall paper is interesting! Only a handful of economists can say the same. Every paper has an idea, and some sort of novel contribution. His lesser-known papers can be as thought-provoking as the more famous ones. Here is Bob on scholar.google.com.
- Marginal Revolution Read
The Nobel Prize Goes to Robert Hall and Michael Woodford
Twenty-five years ago Tyler told me he thought Robert Hall should win the Nobel. He has been a contender for so long today’s award was a surprise! Hall has an unusual number of unexpectedly creative papers. His best known is on consumption. Start with the Keynesian model, or at least the textbook version: Y =
- Marginal Revolution Read
Michael Woodford Wins Nobel
No one since Milton Friedman has done more to shape how central bankers think about their jobs than Michael Woodford. Woodford’s Interest and Prices (2003) has been called the central bankers’ bible. If you have read a speech by a Fed governor in the last twenty years you have read Woodford, even if his name
- Marginal Revolution Read
Okie-dokie, Casey Handmer edition
I’ve been prototyping an automated peer review project. With current models you get human level peer review for about $0.10 of tokens. For $5 you can rederive every result, check every statistical inference, and audit every paper cited in both directions. There are about 100m papers in the scientific corpus. Most are not important. Many
- Marginal Revolution Read
Sunday assorted links
1. Was Leonardo da Vinci Jewish? 2. Twenty things to listen to in classical music. 3. Ezra Klein and Arvind Narayanan on AI as a normal technology (NYT). 4. Gans and Acemoglu on AI. 5. The return of Audrey Niffenegger. 6. Podcasts as the new form of comedy? (New Yorker) 7. PC on Dostoyevsky.
- Marginal Revolution Read
Sky Roomba!
I bought a robot window cleaner. I have some high windows which need a ladder just to get the bottom and with this I can just start the robot at the bottom, it cleans the window and then returns to the start point. The bot cost me considerably less than it would have cost to have my windows cleaned once.
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