Policy, markets, and the science of choices.
1. Rob Wiblin interviews Rohin Shah, who leads AGI alignment/safety at DeepMind. 2. Books Arnold Kling has reread. 3. Wemby and Star Wars. 4. Even (especially?) for ontologists, supply is elastic. 5. SSRN is getting worse. 6. Major layoffs at The New School. 7…
2010s digital media closes up shop.
In his autobiography "Born to Be Wired," Warner board member and billionaire John Malone describes how he helped turn America into a society focused on greed and market power.
It is always interesting to follow interdisciplinary reserch work. Khachatur Manukyan, a Physics professor at University of Notre Dame studies how Benjamin Franklin prevented counterfeiting of currency notes: Benjamin Franklin understood something fundamental…
We were honored to speak to OpenAI about the economics of AI. Lots of good material here. Self-recommending. The post Tyler and Alex Speak to OpenAI appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
It turns out that Trump doesn’t have the cards
Gold is trading like a high-beta asset these days and not like a safe haven
Andrew Blackman at Wall Street Journal asked several economists for ideas on “what to do about inequality?” As you can imagine, I argued with the question.
Overall, the Western Hemisphere now produces more oil than the Middle East did before the crisis. Canada is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer. Brazil produces four times as much oil as Venezuela; and in Guyana, where production began only seven years ago…
When during the meetings the Americans offered that at most they could convert 15 percent of U.S. auto plants to military production, Beaverbrook replies that 100 percent of British automobile factories had been converted, and encouraged Roosevelt to aim highe…
A platform built for writer–reader relationships now has to survive venture capital, discovery algorithms, and AI intermediaries in a world of frictionless payments, neo-Nazi edge cases, TikTok brain-
Governments are increasingly taking undemocratic steps in the name of preserving democracy—but this must be done with caution.
Reading, arguing, & prompting as different ways of making absent minds speak, from Machiavelli’s study to the fan‑whir of an M5 Max., for it is a fact that black squiggles on the page and linear...
The post My twenty-minute AI talk for the Swedish company Sana appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
Here’s what the case looks like without the hyperbole.
1. Does banking consolidation harm households? 2. Some comments on the new federal framework for AI regulation. 3. This guy is skeptical about doing things in space. 4. Is Chairman Mao underrated, and why did India not get rich too? 5. “Between 1985–2023, MIT’…
Many folks, including me, have observed that it seems to take much longer to build infrastructure in the US than it used to.
People are freaking out about AI. That doesn't mean a random tax is a good idea.
In California a 17 year-old can drive a car but can’t ride alone in an Uber or a Waymo. I long for the days when you could put a kid in the post. We have weakened as a civilization. The post CA Logic appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
Another failing war Trump won’t end
Martina Jančoková, Enrico Mallucci, Martino Ricci and Luca Tondo on whether Euro worked as a safe-haven currency during these trying times. In earlier crises, Euro has not been seen as a safe-haven currency . However in 2025 and 2026, there are signs that Euro…
It's the safe haven status of gold that's gotten dinged recently, not that of the Dollar
That is the topic of my latest Free Press column. Here is one excerpt: The present and also future of mankind is a world where reasonably high levels of self-discipline are needed to do well. The journalist Daniel Akst pointed this out in his 2011 book Temptat…
The struggle against excessive corporate power needs better standard-bearers.
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly promoted as educational tutors, yet most evaluations focus on domains with a single ground truth. Many disciplines, however, hinge on judgment: reasoning, weighing ambiguity, and reaching defensible conclusions. La…
Soaring semiconductor orders are supposed to signal a bright future for investment and jobs; but I cannot help but suspect the AI unicorns and those donning AI-unicorn clothing sprinting to IPOs...
An imagined conversation on Japan with my friends Brad Setser and Joe Gagnon
How Ukraine learned to hit Putin where it hurts.
1. One hundred greatest bird names of all time. 2. The method for counting 52,019 puffins. 3. Luggage-tag switching scheme involves flights from Canada to countries where drug smuggling can carry death penalty. Yet a third link from Jodi Ettenberg. 4. Pet Soun…
According to Feynman’s approach, in this context, people should try a different restaurant each night until they find one that exceeds a particular threshold that reflects a desired quality. In Feynman’s equations this threshold is not fixed. Instead it declin…