Month: October 2024
A funny feature of the AI doomster argument
If you ask them whether they are short the market, many will say there is no way to short the apocalypse. But of course you can benefit from pending signs of deterioration in advance. At the very least, you can short some markets, or go long volatility, and then send those profits to Somalia to mitigate suffering for a few years before the whole world ends.
Still, in a recent informal debate at the wonderful Roots of Progress conference in Berkeley, many of the doomsters insisted to me that “the end” will come as a complete surprise, given the (supposed) deceptive abilities of AGI.
But note what they are saying. If markets will not fall at least partially in advance, they are saying the passage of time, and the events along the way, will not persuade anyone. They are saying that further contemplation of their arguments will not persuade any marginal investors, whether directly or indirectly. They are predicting that their own ideas will not spread any further.
I take those as signs of a pretty weak argument. “It will never get more persuasive than it is right now!” “There’s only so much evidence for my argument, and never any more!” Of course, by now most intelligent North Americans with an interest in these issues have heard these arguments and they are most decidedly not persuaded.
There is also a funny epistemic angle here. If the next say twenty years of evidence and argumentation are not going to persuade anyone else at the margin, why should you be holding this view right now? What is it that you know, that is so resistant to spread and persuasion over the course of the next twenty years?
I would say that to ask such questions is to answer them.
Monday assorted links
My Russian classical music podcast with Rick Rubin
You will find it here. Rick asked me to give him my account of Russian classical music, “standing on one foot” as you might say. With musical clips as well, played on Rick’s sound system. So we started with Rimsky and Mussorgsky, and the European and folk/peasant music traditions as contrasting influences in Russian music. There is then plenty of Tchaikovsky, Scriabin, and Stravinsky followinig, with perhaps Stravinsky as the organizing figure of the presentation.
It is never easy to do such things off the top of one’s head. Nonetheless recommended.
Gustav de Molinari, the first libertarian?
He was a nineteenth century Belgian economist, wonderful to read, and still neglected as a thinker. Here is one excerpt from a short open access book by Benoit Malbranque, now on line:
Gustave de Molinari himself was perhaps as much a traveler, a journalist and an historian, as he was a political philosopher. In fact, apart from a handful of professional travelers, very few people knew so much about the world as he did. Over the years, he made lengthy stays in Switzerland (1857), Russia (1860, 1882), Canada (1876, 1880, 1885), Ireland (1880), and the United States (1876, 1880, 1885). His journeys also made him discover England, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Turkey, as well as the Caribbean islands, Panama, Columbia, and Venezuela. Travels were obviously, at that time, more perilous and adventurous than they are now. By sea, they were both uncomfortable and terribly long: crossing the Atlantic Ocean took de Molinari 12 days in 1876, 10 days in 1880, and 11 days in 1885.
Part of his forward-looking libertarianism was a strong belief in international agreements, in the interests of peace and mutual cooperation. He also blamed the poor quality and high expense of American food, as he perceived it, on American protectionism.
Here is a more general page of relevant material on French liberalism. All via Daniel Klein.
Acemoglu interview with Times of India
Here is part of the segment on AI:
Given the potential for AI to exacerbate inequality, how can we redirect technology?
We need to actively steer technological development in a direction that benefits broader swathes of humanity. This require a pro-human approach that prioritises enhancing worker productivity and autonomy, supporting democracy and citizen empowerment, and fostering creativity and innovation.
To achieve this, we need to: a) Change the narrative around technology, emphasising societal control and a focus on human well-being. b) Build strong countervailing powers, such as labour unions and civil society organisations, to balance the power of tech companies, and c) Implement policies that level the playing field, including tax reforms that discourage automation and promote labour, data rights for individuals and creative workers, and regulations on manipulative digital advertising practices.
Here is the full interview.
Sunday assorted links
What do panda rental contracts look like?
Administrators cannot discuss panda illness, death, disease or “any other important matters” without first consulting with their Chinese partners, whose views “shall be fully respected.”
“In cases where release of related information to the outside world or acceptance of media interviews is necessary, it shall be implemented only after communication and consultation between the parties and a consensus is reached,” the contracts read. “And where no consensus is reached, no news shall be released.”
In a statement, the San Diego Zoo said it was common for partners to discuss animal well-being “and come to a mutual understanding before sharing updates publicly.”
Previous contracts did not contain such “information management” restrictions.
Here is more from Mara Hvistendahl at the NYT, interesting throughout.
Musk on Sharks
A great little video on over-regulation.
Saudi construction project of the day
Saudi Arabia is preparing to begin construction work on its next giga-project: a cube-shaped skyscraper big enough to fit 20 Empire State Buildings.
The Mukaab will be 400-meters on each side when construction is finished, which would make it the largest built structure in the world. The building will be the centerpiece of New Murabba, a community the country hopes will be a new destination within the capital city of Riyadh.
“It’s masquerading as a building today but it’s so much more,” Michael Dyke, chief executive officer of New Murabba, said in an interview. “Ultimately, a capital city the size of Riyadh deserves to have a global, central icon as other capital cities do.”
Here is more from Zainab Fattah at Bloomberg. Here are various images based on artist renderings. Here is further information.
The Declining Relative Quality of the Child Care Workforce
Although it is widely acknowledged that high-skilled teachers are integral to service quality and young children’s well-being in child care settings, little is known about the qualifications and skills of the child care workforce. This paper combines data from multiple sources to provide a comprehensive assessment of the quality of individuals employed in the child care sector. I find that today’s workforce is relatively low-skilled: child care workers have less schooling than those in other occupations, they score substantially lower on tests of cognitive ability, and they are among the lowest-paid individuals in the economy. I also show that the relative quality of the child care workforce is declining, in part because higher-skilled individuals increasingly find the child care sector less attractive than other occupations. Furthermore, I provide evidence that at least three other factors may be associated with the decline in worker quality. First, the recent proliferation of community college programs offering child care-related certificates and degrees may divert students away from attending four-year schools. Second, those majoring in child care-related fields are negatively selected for their cognitive skills, thereby decreasing the quality of the child care labor pool. Third, I show that the increased availability of outside employment options for high-skilled women had a detrimental effect on the quality of the child care workforce.
That is from a new paper by Chris M. Herbst. Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.
Saturday assorted links
The protest culture that is Maine
A man used homemade explosives, some of which he dropped from drones, to attack or intimidate in a dispute rooted in local politics in a community in northern Maine, law enforcement officials said. No one was hurt.
Joshua Brydon, 37, of Woodland, appeared in court this week after authorities say he set off explosives near the homes of several people with devices he created from fireworks, propane bottles and other materials, according to court documents. One of the blasts was strong enough to knock items off a wall in a home, and several of the explosives were dropped by drones operated by Brydon, according to documents.
Court records indicate Brydon targeted people who had taken issue with a former member of the Woodland Select Board or with his father-in-law, the town’s road commissioner.
Here is the full story, via Mike Rosenwald.
Iranian Kidney Donors
Iran is one of the few countries in the world to have eliminated the shortage of kidneys. A useful new paper looks at what donors are like,
First some background:
The adoption of a regulated market mechanism for kidney procurement in Iran started in 1988 in the absence of sufficient posthumous donations (Ghods and Savaj, 2006). The mechanism allows living unrelated Iranian individuals to donate kidneys to Iranian patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD) for financial gains. The program was successful in eliminating the renal transplant waiting list within a decade of its implementation (Mahdavi-Mazdeh, 2012). In addition, the Organ Transplant Act legalized brain-stem death donations in 2000. Both ESRD patients and potential kidney donors are referred to and registered with The Association for Supporting Renal Patients, a non-profit organization (NGO) which conducts a primary medical evaluation and facilitates the market exchange. Upon successful completion of the test, a formal consent is acquired and the potential donor and the recipient are introduced to each other. At this stage both the patient and the donor are referred to a nephrologist for further evaluation, cross-match, and angiography. If the patient-donor pair is compatible, in the next step the pair negotiate the terms and conditions of the exchange. All terms within the price-cap are guaranteed and enforceable by the NGO. The price-cap is frequently adjusted for inflation and during the course of our study was set at 180 million Iranian Rial (US$4700 in August 2017). However, the negotiation is private and the pair can agree any terms they wish. The donor also receives a “gift of altruism” and 1 year of insurance from the government through the Charity Foundation for Special Diseases. Transplant surgery is carried out free of charge in public university hospitals. The Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education introduced further procedural changes in July 2019. In particular, they established a center for organ transplant and procurement at the ministry which acts as the matching centre and provides oversight and overall control of the process.
Are the donors irrational, risk-loving, impatient? No, they are normal people making the best of sometimes limited opportunities:
The overall picture is of individuals who were in financial need, often unemployed but with a family to support and where alternatives sources of financial support were grim. However, despite their financial position, these individuals were typically patient and not especially prone to risk-taking. They were no less rational than the average, but those who ended up completing the process might be characterized as more altruistic than those who did not….More broadly our findings indicate that even in situations of extreme poverty we should not assume lower levels of rationality will be pervasive.
Given that donation saves lives and that kidney donation is not especially risky (much less risky than driving a motorcycle, for example) the tradeoff seems positive and well within ordinary bounds.
Turning to the US, here is Sally Satel on a proposed tax credit for kidney donation:
What if we could solve the organ donor shortage with a simple tax credit? That is the idea behind the End Kidney Deaths Act (EKDA) (HR 9275).
The bill, advanced by the Coalition to Modify NOTA (NOTA stands for the National Organ Transplant Act passed in 1984) would provide a $50,000 refundable tax credit—$10,000 per year for five years—to any living donor who gave a kidney to the next person on the waiting list. The tax credit would be a 10-year pilot program.
The credit would save 10,000 to perhaps as many as 100,000 lives over ten years.
FYI, I am a supporter of Modify NOTA (along with Al Roth, Steve Levitt, and Mario Macis, to name just a few of the economists, joined by surgeons, nephrologists and others).
Hat tip: Kevin Lewis.
Fluoride revisionism?
I am usually skeptical of such efforts, but Journal of Health Economics is quite a serious outlet:
Community water fluoridation has been named one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century for its role in improving dental health. Fluoride has large negative effects at high doses, clear benefits at low levels, and an unclear optimal dosage level. I leverage county-level variation in the timing of fluoride adoption, combined with restricted U.S. Census data that link over 29 million individuals to their county of birth, to estimate the causal effects of childhood fluoride exposure. Children exposed to community water fluoridation from age zero to five are worse off as adults on indices of economic self-sufficiency (−1.9% of a SD) and physical ability and health (−1.2% of a SD). They are also significantly less likely to graduate high school (−1.5 percentage points) or serve in the military (−1.0 percentage points). These findings challenge existing conclusions about safe levels of fluoride exposure.
That new article is by Adam Roberts. Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.
The Political Transformation of Corporate America, 2001-2022
This article reconciles conflicting views about the political landscape of corporate America with new data on the revealed political preferences of 97,469 corporate directors and executives at 9,005 different U.S. companies. I find that average ideology for these individuals has shifted meaningfully to the left over time, changing from modestly conservative in 2001 to roughly centrist by 2022. This finding supports a middle-ground position between conventional wisdom casting “big business” as a conservative stronghold and revisionist views holding the opposite. Counterfactual simulations and a difference-in-differences design suggest multifaceted causes for these changes, and hand-collected data on corporate stances on LGBTQ-related legislation coupled with an instrumental variables design indicate that individual ideology has large effects on firm-level political activity. Overall, this transformation has profound implications for American politics, as the individuals comprising one of the most powerful interest groups—corporate elites—appear to be fracturing ideologically and to some degree even switching sides.
That is from a new paper by Reilly Steel.