~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (560)

I had not known of this passage, which I am packaging with its introduction from Gavan Tredoux: John Maynard Keynes has the undeserved reputation of a critic of the USSR. Few know that he reviewed Sidney and Beatrice Webb’s mendacious tome The Soviet Union: a New Civilization (1935/1937/1943) fawningly. Perhaps the most embarrassing thing Keynes […] The post Keynes on the Soviet Union appeared...

I must admit, though, that the thing that scared me most about HudZah was that he seemed to be living in a different technological universe than I was. If the previous generation were digital natives, HudZah was an AI native. HudZah enjoys reading the old-fashioned way, but he now finds that he gets more out […] The post The forward march of computer use,...

…for people in various stages and situations of life.  You will find the discussion here. The post Chris Barber asks me to give AI-related advice appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to H. “and everyone else will be relegated to ... by Todd KIn reply to mento. But with exceptions like the fast ... by Todd KIn reply to Ted Craig. These...

1. Was RCA the tech stock of the 1920s? 2. Measuring the skill of individual soccer players. 3. Electric “autos” for India. 4. Chinese views on DeepSeek.  And Chinese music AI, Yue, the model song.  And Chinese robot dance.  And a poem from R1.  And R1 wants more mood affiliation from Yglesias. 5. The AI […] The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on...

Antimicrobial resistance is a growing problem. Peptides, short sequences of amino acids, are nature’s first defense against bacteria. Research on antimicrobial peptides is promising but such research could be much more productive if combined with machine learning on big data. But collecting, collating and organizing big data is a public good and underprovided. Current peptide […] The post It’s Time to Build the Peptidome!...

No, as I argue in my latest Bloomberg column.  This one is basic economics: The simpler point is this: If large financial firms can buy your home, you are better off. You will have more money to retire on, and presumably selling your home will be easier and quicker, removing what for many homeowners is […] The post Is it a problem if Wall...

We want to know if AGI is coming. Chow, Halperin, and Mazlish have a paper called “Transformative AI, Existential Risk, and Real Interest Rates” arguing that, if we believe the markets, it is not coming for some time. The reasoning is simple. If we expect to consume much more in the future, and people engage […] The post Will transformative AI raise interest rates?...

1. How fiscally progressive are state governments? 2. Update on the quest to abolish parking minimums (NYT). 3. When are tariffs the optimal industrial policy? 4. Interview with the CEO behind DeepSeek. 5. Executive Order tracker. 6. “Our findings indicate that, on average, a large minimum wage increase results in a 4.6 percent increase in […] The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on...

A brilliant critique of AI, and a great read: In 1582, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II commissioned a clockwork automaton of St. George. The saint could raise his sword, nod gravely, and even bleed—a trick involving ox bladder and red wine—before collapsing in pious ecstasy. The machine was a marvel, but Rudolf’s courtiers recoiled. […] The post The Interface as Infernal Contract appeared...

A shortage of electricians means that those willing to endure long shifts and live on remote sites can potentially earn up to A$200,000 (US$124,000) a year — double the national average salary and not far off the average MP salary. “It’s a cup half full/half empty life. You do 12-hour shifts, there’s the heat, the […] The post Future unemployment will be (mostly) voluntary...

…Rwanda is still poorer than most African countries due to being less urbanized than most African nations (Rwanda is 82% rural compared to Sub Saharan Africa’s 57% average). Rwanda’s donor aid adds up to ~75% of Rwanda’s government spending, which is roughly $1B. The average Rwandan makes $1K a year ($3300 at purchasing power parity). At purchasing power parity, […] The post Facts about Rwanda appeared first on...

From Naveen: So much talk of “AI safety” and too little in the way of practical questions like these that are going to be important in the near future. Should law enforcement be able to subpoena AI  assistants about your information? For example, I use the free GPT-3.5/4 version and it already has a lot […] The post Questions about LLMs (from my email)...

1. Is DeepSeek-R1 a good writer? 2. Dominic Cummings reading list. 3. Modern novels by country, a superb and thorough website. 4. Joe Boyd world music playlist. 5. Various observations on hardware and current AI trends.  A good piece. 6. Chamath, on the implications of DeepSeek. 7. Acemoglu on liberalism (NYT). The post Monday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply...

When Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991 it pushed some 20 million tons of SO₂ into the stratosphere reducing global temperatures by ~0.5°C for two years. Make Sunsets is a startup that replicates this effort at small scale to reduce global warming. To be precise, Make Sunsets launches balloons that release SO₂ into the stratosphere, creating […] The post Make Sunsets: Geoengineering appeared first on...

Data collected by INRIX, a transportation analytics firm, found that travel times across the city and region had actually slowed overall at peak rush hours — by 3 percent in the morning and 4 percent in the evening — during the first two weeks of congestion pricing compared to a similar period last year. Travel […] The post Congestion pricing update appeared first on...

Noah Smith, and a few readers, have asked for a summary post about the errors of Michael Pettis.  Since Pettis is now an influential trade thinkers with many of the Trump people, I think it is worth repeating my previous points just a bit. Here are the errors, perhaps there are more: He talks about […] The post The mistakes of Michael Pettis appeared...

1. Cato ad for policy analyst in human progress and economics.  And for psychology. 2. Joe Boyd episode Spotify playlist, put together by a CWT listener. 3. Lots more black holes than we had thought? And more here. 4. DeepSeek okie-dokie: “All I know is we keep pushing forward to make open-source AGI a reality […] The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on...

This study quantifies the direct average net fiscal impact (ANFI) of migration in Germany, taking into account both indirect taxes and in-kind benefits such as health and education spending. Using a status quo approach with data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for 2018 and microsimulation techniques to impute both indirect taxes and in-kind benefits, […] The post Do Migrants Pay Their Way? A...

Thoee two novels by Solvej Balle, a Danish author, are now available in English.  Conceptually, they are close to time travel novels (I should not tell you the actual nature of the twist), but with more literary value than you might be expecting. Every now and then a new book comes along that is conceptual, […] The post *On the Calculation of Volume, I...

That is the new James C. Scott book, from Yale University Press.  It focuses on Burma [sic], and I found this to be the most typical and illustrative sentence: Several of the commentators evaluating this book in manuscript noticed that the section of river spirits (nats) and the much larger section describing the eco zones, […] The post *In Praise of Floods*, James C....

1. Teen fertility in sub-Saharan Africa. 2. Does Chile have the fastest fertility collapse? 3. New book sorting algorithm almost reaches perfection. 4. How did the organization of DOGE end up? An important piece. As I have been predicting, DOGE will shrink government (slow its rate of growth?) by only a modest amount, if at […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

In our paper on online education, Tyler and I wrote: One model of a future course is a super-textbook: lectures, exercises, quizzes, and grading all available on a tablet with artificial intelligence routines guiding students to lectures and exercises designed to address that student’s deficits and with human intelligence—tutors—on call on an as-needed basis, possibly […] The post AI Improves Student Learning and Engagement...

Over the past half-century, the share of men enrolled in college has steadily declined relative to women. Today, 1.6 million more women than men attend four-year colleges in the U.S. This trend has not lowered marriage rates for college women, a substantial share of whom have historically married economically stable men without college degrees. Both […] The post Gender gaps in education and declining...

From Tom Forth: In at least six Conversations with Tyler, Tyler Cowen asks his interviewee why they think North England is poor. I don’t think he gets good enough answers, which is why I guess he keeps asking. So here is a better explanation of why North England is poor with a bonus explanation of […] The post Why northern England is poor appeared...