Category: Uncategorized
My Free Press column on Moltbook
Here is the link, excerpt:
The reality of bot communication is more mundane than the most extreme examples online make it sound. AI expert Rohit Krishnan measured their conversations and found that they gravitate to the same few subjects.
“LLMs [large language models] LOVE to talk about the same stuff over and over again, they have favorite motifs that they return to,” Krishnan writes. Does that sound like any humans you know? They frequently repeat themselves and each other, with just small variations. And a relatively small percentage of the bots are doing a high share of the talking. Made in our own image, indeed.
What we have done with these agents is to create self-reinforcing loops that keep responding to each other. If enough time passes, as with humans, the bots will end up saying virtually everything, including conspiracy talk. Expect highly unpleasant political views to follow, as well as peacenik chatter and plans for love-ins. They will have favorite heavy-metal songs, too, some of them with satanic themes.
Over the course of 2026, I expect that there will be analogous AI-run networks, created by humans (as Moltbook was) or by bots themselves. Imagine a bot that calls up an AI music generator like Suno and asks for a new Renaissance choral tune but sung in Guarani, and then shares it with the other bots (and some humans) on a bot network devoted to music composition. Or how about a site where the AIs comment on various Free Press articles?
By the way, the bot who wrote me looking for work is now a verified story. The bot’s “owner” apologized, and offered a full explanation, though I said I was delighted to receive the message. Here is an update from Scott Alexander.
Monday assorted links
1. Simulating the growth of Mexico City.
2. First contact with America, can one visit matter so much?
3. Documentary on economist Antonio de Viti Marco.
4. Debates over YIMBY and supply.
5. One underrated benefit of feminization. When you live it, that is.
7. Why the delay on the tariff rulings?
8. The early internet optimists were not optimistic enough (Bloomberg). Lessons for today?
9. Sahm on Warsh.
Spinoza the Bayesian fine-tunes his own training
Formerly he would run to the kitchen every time I opened the refrigerator door. Now he comes only when I open the cheese compartment.
He has learned the difference between getting “a pee” (only modestly fun, a quick stint outdoors) vs. “a walk in the park,” the latter being very fun indeed. He knows the words pee and park, but also can tell from my body language alone what will await him. He wags his bum for only the park trip.
Often he knows when we are talking about him, even when we do not refer to him by name. And if someone he knows calls on the phone, he comes over to listen. Otherwise he does not budge.
Spinoza, a miniature Australian shepherd, is now over eleven years old.
Bill Dudley on scarce reserves
In addition to the transitional issues, a regime of scarce reserves has disadvantages. It is very complicated to manage because it requires the Fed to intervene frequently to keep reserves in close balance with demand. For example, in the past, the Treasury had to keep its cash balance at the Fed low and stable so that fluctuations did not make it difficult for the central bank to maintain control of short-term interest rates. Banks satisfied reserve requirements over a two-week reserve maintenance period to make it easier for the Fed to match demand and supply.
Also, scarce reserves are incompatible with open-ended backstop facilities that can support confidence during times of stress. In an open-ended backstop, there is no risk that the central bank will exhaust its lending capacity. In contrast, when the amount of funds on offer is limited, there is an incentive to access the facility quickly before the funds run out. An open-ended facility is superior in maintaining and restoring confidence in the system. In contrast, a scarce reserves regime undermines the ability of the central bank to fulfil its lender of last resort function — the reason why the Fed was established in the first place.
Part of the subtext here is a desire to continue paying interest on reserves. Here is more from Bloomberg. Here is some analysis from 5.2 Pro, including a look at what Scott Sumner would say.
Sunday assorted links
1. Claims about the evolution of chess.
2. The EU grew 1.4% last year. Modestly underrated?
3. The “zombie reasoning” of AIs.
4. Taleb II.
5. Are the Fed’s functions being rethought? (FT)
6. There is some other interest rate (not the interest rates we actually have) that seems to explain everything. How can that be?
What should I ask Joel Mokyr?
Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him. He is of course one of this last year’s Nobel Laureates in economics, here is previous MR coverage of him. Here is Wikipedia.
He has a recent book Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000-2000, co-authored with Avner Greif and Guido Tabellini.
So what should I ask him?
*Paul Celan: A Life*, by Anna Arno
I do not think it is crazy to regard Celan as standing in the very top tier of poets, noting the poems must be read in the German language. Who has more important topics at a comparable level of quality? This is an excellent biography of him, from the origins in Romania to his affair with Ingeborg Bachmann to his eventual madness and suicide. Recommended, pre-order it here. Definitely slated for the best non-fiction books of the year list.
The Australian government is overreaching already
The social media ban for the young applies to Substack:
The process was more painful for users of newer platforms that collect far less behavioural data—like Substack. Again, this is something I didn’t predict. In the circles I move in, Substack’s sudden requirement that users upload ID has caused significant ire. But this reaction misunderstands how the eSafety Commissioner’s powers work in relation to the under‑16 ban—or perhaps reflects a hope that Substack would have shown more backbone than it did…
Many people assume that if a platform isn’t on the “banned” list, it doesn’t need to comply with the regulations. This is not true. Only platforms expressly excluded are exempt. Everything else is treated as prohibited for under‑16s unless specifically allowed—a distinct departure from the traditional English liberties approach that everything is legal unless expressly made illegal. This approach is to prevent young users from migrating from a banned platform to an unlisted alternative.
That is by Dara Macdonald on Quillette, via Arnold Kling. I am hoping that consistent advocates of free speech will speak up and repudiate this ban…
Saturday assorted links
1. Brian Armstrong vs. banking lobbies (WSJ).
2. Rembrandt lion sketch now estimated at $15-20 million. Not long ago, such things were undervalued, now they are overvalued. This Turner watercolor remains a bargain. Good offerings overall. A good collection to study to understand “taste.”
4. Simon Willison on Moltbook.
5. My TBPN episode, about twenty minutes long.
6. “President Trump said he is nominating economist Brett Matsumoto to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics.” (WSJ) Should be a good coice.
7. Thread on potential East Africa conflicts.
8. Arnold Kling on social media bans for minors.
9. Taleb.
My GoodFellows podcast
…with Hoover Senior Fellows Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and H.R. McMaster, Whelan moderates. As they tweet: “to discuss the World Economic Forum, globalization, democratic socialism, and affordability politics in New York. Afterward, they examine Minneapolis, Iran, China, and the meaning of the “right side of history.””
What I’ve been reading
Adrian Goldsworthy, Augustus: First Emperor of Rome. A very clear and readable treatment of one of the most important Romans. Exactly what you would expect from the author.
Indranil Chakravarty, The Tree Within: The Mexican Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz’s Years in India. Imagine a book that is interesting about both the cultures of Mexico and India. In addition to the one by Octavio Paz, that is. I lapped this one up eagerly, and I note it also has good coverage on the relationships between different Latin American writers and poets. Paz by the way largely was at odds with the left-wingers.
Stewart Brand, Maintenance: Of Everything: Part One. Capital depreciation, while it receives attention in economics, arguably is still underrated in import? Institutions can deteriorate or depreciate as well. The great Stewart Brand tackles this topic with the expected panache. And here is my earlier CWT with Stewart. A Stripe Press book.
Jack Weatherford, Emperor of the Seas: Kublai Khan and the Making of China. A fun and good book, think of it as explaining how Kublai Khan beat Song China but subsequently lost to Japan. The Ainu play a role in a wide-ranging and still historically relevant story.
Leon Fleisher and Anne Midgette, My Nine Lives: A Memoir of Many Careers in Music. Classical music is a wonderful area to read books in, much like World War II. Most of the books are written by very smart people, such as Fleisher, a top pianist in his time (try Fleisher-Szell for the Beethoven piano concerti). And they are written for very smart people. You can always, with profit, just keep on reading books about classical music.
Roland Lazenby, Michael Jordan: The Life. I learned much more from this book than I was expecting, it is flat out an excellent biography. Full of information and insight, and with a coherent narrative.
There is Richard Sandor and Paula DiPerna, Carbon Hunters: Reflections and Forecasts of Climate Markets in the 21st Century. Much of this is simply interesting material about Sandor himself.
I am pleased to see the McKinsey version of Progress Studies in the new book A Century of Plenty: A Story of Progress for Generations to Come.
Supply is elastic, installment #6437
In Italy’s storied gold‑making hubs, jewellers are reworking their designs to trim gold content as they race to blunt the impact of record prices and appeal to shoppers watching their budgets.
The rally is putting undue pressure on small artisans as they face mounting demands from clients including international brands to produce cheaper items, from signature pieces to wedding rings…
“The main question that I’ve heard in the last months is if I can produce something lighter while having the same appearance,” said Massimo Lucchetta, owner of Lucchetta 1953, an independent jeweller which makes items for department stores in Bassano del Grappa, near Italy’s premier gold-crafting hub of Vicenza in the country’s northeast.
Here is the full story, via John De Palma.
Friday assorted links
1. The mass market paperback is going away.
2. How many people does the world have?
3. India’s first AI university is opening.
5. Yup (cuss word behind this link).
7. On the Claude constitution. And a Straussian reading?
8. The Chilean cabinet under Kast.
9. Moltbook, the new social network for AIs. And Astral Codex comments. And another view. And some more. And then some.
10. David Brooks is leaving the NYT (and moving full-time to Atlantic, podcast also, the first link is NYT).
Are the French lazy?
Olivier Blanchard writes:
The French are not lazy. They just enjoy leisure more than most (no irony here)
And this is perfectly fine: As productivity increases, it is perfectly reasonable to take it partly as more leisure (fewer hours per week, earlier retirement age), and only partly in income.
He has follow-up points and clarifications in later posts. For instance:
If somebody, in France, wants to work hard, retire late or not all, and work 50-60 hours a week, it is perfectly possible. (this conclusion is based on introspection). Some of us are blessed with exciting jobs. Most of us unfortunately are not.
Here is JFV on that question. And a response from Olivier. Here is John Cochrane.
Perhaps “lazy” is not the right word for this discussion. I view West Europeans in general as providing good quality work per hour, but wanting to work fewer hours, compared to Americans and also compared to many East Asians. Much of that is due to taxes, noting that tax regimes are endogenous to the mores of a population. (Before the 1970s, West Europeans often worked longer hours, by the way.) So it is not only taxes by any means. Furthermore, many (not all) parts of Europe have superior leisure opportunities, compared to what is available in many (not all) parts of the United States. That seems to me the correct description of the reality, not “lazy,” or “not lazy.”
I would add some additional points. First, the world is sometimes in a (short?) period of local increasing returns. I believe we are in such a period now, as evidenced by China and the United States outperforming much of the rest of the world. Maybe the French cannot do anything to leap to such “large economy margins,” but I am not opposed to saying “there is something wrong” with not much trying. Perhaps lack of ambition at the social level is the concept, rather than laziness. I see only some French people, not too many to be clear, throwing themselves onto the bonfire trying to nudge their societal norms toward more ambition.
Second, although the world is not usually in an increasing returns regime, over the long long run it probably is. We humans can stack General Purpose Technologies, over the centuries and millennia, and get somewhere really splendid in a (long-run) explosive fashion. That is another form of increasing returns, even if you do not see it in the data in most individual decades in most countries.
That also makes me think “there is something wrong” with not much trying. And on that score, France can clearly contribute and to some extent already is contributing through its presence in science, math, bio, etc. The French even came up with an early version of the internet. Nonetheless France could contribute more, and I think it would be preferable if social norms could nudge them more in that direction. I do not see comparable potent externalities from French leisure consumption. Maybe the French could teach America how wonderful trips to France are, and thus induce Americans to work more to afford them, and if that is the dominant effect I am happy once again.
So on the proactive side, it still seems to be France could do better than it does, and social welfare likely would rise as a result. That said, they hardly seem like the worst offender in this regard, though you still might egg them on because they have so much additional high-powered potential.
Thursday assorted links
1. “And what this implies is rather striking, and rarely discussed by those outside of public health: that among their many purposes and benefits, vaccines have served now for decades as a kind of substitute health safety net in America.” (NYT)
4. Jon Hartley on John Roberts.
5. Penguin population by country.
6. Sly Dunbar obituary (NYT).