What should I ask Moxie Marlinspike?
Yes I will be doing a Conversation with him, live at the Roots of Progress event next week. From Wikipedia:
Moxie Marlinspike is an American entrepreneur, cryptographer, and computer security researcher. Marlinspike is the creator of Signal, co-founder of the Signal Technology Foundation, and served as the first CEO of Signal Messenger LLC. He is also a co-author of the Signal Protocol encryption used by Signal, WhatsApp, Google Messages, Facebook Messenger and Skype.
There is much more at the link, for instance he is also an anarchist of some kind or another. So what should I ask him?
The top private sector employers of economics graduates
Here is the link.
Merging LLMs and economics research
We introduce an open-source workflow that enables an LLM to reproduce, improve, and extend an economics article using the article’s published replication package. First, the workflow attempts to reproduce the original calculations, checks for discrepancies with published findings, and performs automated sensitivity analysis. Across 4,452 published replication packages for five economics journals, the workflow flags discrepancies in 3,460 articles or their appendices. Second, the workflow improves the original calculations by using a different implementation or algorithm. In 496 articles, the workflow is able to reduce a calculation’s computation time, at similar or greater accuracy, by more than a factor of 10. Third, the workflow extends the original analysis. In 923 articles, the workflow develops an extension that does not appear in the original article and that is aligned with the original article’s goals and assumptions.
That is from a new paper by
The polity that is Singapore
Police in Singapore have charged a man who is accused of posting an AI-generated image of a saltwater crocodile in a popular reservoir.
Ye Lin was charged with communicating a false message and obstructing the course of justice for allegedly deleting the picture and the application he used.
The fake image caused public concern, authorities allege. The national water agency suspended its work at the city-state’s largest reservoir for two days last month after receiving information that a crocodile had been spotted.
Here is the full story, via Kyle.
Wednesday assorted links
1. It seems there is no evidence for the concept of a fertility rebound.
2. We will tell children nasty stories, but mostly only show them positive images.
4. Weather risk is reflected in Florida home prices.
5. Have we discovered where Aristotle taught Alexander the Great?
*Shade*
The author is Sam Bloch, and the subtitle is The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource. An interesting book on a neglected topic, here is one excerpt:
Shade is not part of L.A.’s modern identity. In the 1930s, the city was rezoned to Federal Housing Administration design standards and banned high-density developments like row houses. Although apartments were once common, city leaders bowed to a prevailing wisdom that L.A. should not resemble a dark and cramped East Coast city. Freestanding single family-homes that were touched by sun on every side became mandatory. In came the cars. L.A.’s curbside trees were removed to accommodate shrinking sidewalks and expanding roads, and new rules that require parking minimums dealt another below to the urban forest. Mediterranean-style courtyards became endangered species as the shaded commons were converted to outdoor car storage. For decades, no building could be taller than the twenty-seven-story city hall…
Since the 1970s, an individual right to sunshine has been practically enshrined in state law.
The book also serves as an alternative history of Los Angeles (though it covers much more than that) through this alternative lens.
Don’t let AI make you dumber
That is the topic of my latest Free Press column, here is one excerpt:
I do not think the skeptics would put it this way, but as I read Conti, I find he has a pretty bleak fundamental view of humanity. Are we all really just looking to veg out and abandon curiosity and inquiry, at least once the machines have taken care of both the basic functions of life and certain higher aims such as scientific research? I think some people are like that—indeed you might say many people—but it does not reflect what I take to be the general human condition.
If I look at most people who might fit into the “middle class” when it comes to intellectual pursuits or educational status, I observe they have a lot of strong interests. This might play with their pets, improve their performance at sports, or learn how to cook better. You do not have to identify those preferences with “the new Athens” or “the next Mozart” to think they are perfectly good and noble ways for people to spend their time.
Most of us want to do something interesting and stimulating with our leisure time, and if we do not, it is often because our jobs are so busy and stressful that we just wish to decompress. Of course, in this radical vision of our AI future, fewer jobs will be so all-consuming and so more of us will use vacations and leisure time to explore and learn rather than to just sit on the beach scrolling our phones. And to the extent some jobs do remain hectic, or become even more so (such as cybersecurity), they will continue to be challenging and intellectually stimulating.
A related worry is that humans may feel they simply cannot compete with the AIs, and thus they might turn away from creative pursuits. It is true that I, more than ever, have given up all hope of proving new theorems in mathematical economics. But many of my intellectual and creative pursuits do not involve competition at all. For instance, I use AI to understand classical music better, asking the models questions before I sit down to listen to a piece. (Such as “which are the best recordings?” and “what should I listen for in the second movement?”) As the models get better and smarter, I am not going to be discouraged in this endeavor, as I was not “competing” with the models to see which of us knew more. Rather, I will gratefully end up much better informed about classical music—my increasing knowledge has already induced me to see more live concerts.
Recommended, and AI saved me time on the proofreading and fact-checking (not the writing!), so I could return to reading China Mieville…
Shipping to America
The vulnerability of our shipping routes remains underdiscussed, perhaps that is in some ways a good thing:
We study the macroeconomic and trade-policy implications of disruptions to U.S.-bound shipping routes. Standard models treat them as iceberg-cost shocks, conflating the shock with the response to it. Using satellite vessel-tracking data, we construct route-level measures of potential and effective capacity for all U.S.-bound container ships from 2016 to 2025. Utilization losses in recent disruptions ran 20 to 40 percentage points, and began months before port congestion became visible. We embed these measures in a general equilibrium model in which firms reallocate a common fleet without internalizing the congestion they create and price above marginal cost, while importers’ sourcing responds to route profitability. The reallocation triggered by a disruption then has first-order welfare effects, and the route’s Domar weight is not a sufficient statistic for its welfare cost. The 2021 West Coast crisis and the 2023-2024 Red Sea attacks cost 0.69% and 0.35% of output. Naval protection of Red Sea shipping generated benefits of 0.04-0.08% of output at a fiscal cost of 0.02%. Tariffs decongest the routes they tax, offsetting or even reversing their conventional welfare cost.
That is from a new paper by
Tuesday assorted links
1. Comment section arbitrage. This is what the AIs do too, right?
3. Good Bryan Caplan post on Effective Altruism.
4. Reported female bisexuality is in retreat?
5. Sadly, now a fringey view, yes. But not with me.
Accounting for Cross-Country Income Differences Revisited
Also known as Why I Do Not Believe in the Housing Theory of Everything:
Development accounting is the search for proximate sources of cross-country income differences. This article describes how knowledge in this field has evolved over the two decades since the influential work of Caselli (2005). There have been large advances in the measurement of production inputs (labor, physical capital, and human capital). These advances have raised the estimated contribution of inputs, mostly human capital, in development accounting. Our preferred estimate is that inputs account for 55–70 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) per worker differences, versus 30 percent using the classic specification. The literature has also made progress in moving away from Cobb-Douglas production functions and measuring factors such as management quality that were previously bundled into total factor productivity (TFP). Our review highlights the new implications of these advances, areas where future research would be beneficial, and the limitations of development accounting.
That is from a new NBER working paper by
The Macroeconomic Effect of AI through software engineering
We measure how artificial intelligence (AI) affects the economy through its impact on software engineering productivity. We use information from financial markets to develop a forward-looking measure that is available in real time. We estimate the sensitivity of each firm’s stock return to an AI stock market index, and how this sensitivity depends on the share of firm payroll in software engineering. We use a model to map this cross-sectional relationship into software engineering productivity gains. From November 2022 to December 2025, AI increased the market’s expected present value of software engineering productivity by the equivalent of a permanent 32.6% productivity increase. The corresponding effect on the level of GDP is 3.6% in the baseline and 6.5% when higher software engineering productivity also raises R&D productivity. By mid-2026, amid rapid progress in coding agents, the effect of AI on productivity and GDP had more than doubled relative to the end of 2025.
That is a new NBER working paper by
Man’s best friend?
When it comes to bear encounters in or near the wild, dogs are the aggressors in 54 percent of incidents, according to a recent study conducted by bear experts at Brigham Young University and other institutions, and published in the Journal of Wildlife Management. In approximately 36 percent of the encounters, dogs did not come to their owners’ defense. And they only successfully alerted their owners to the presence of a bear in about 9 percent of cases.
Here is more from the NYT.
Monday assorted links
Mighty Sparrow, RIP
Here is the NYT obituary.
Bundesrepublik Deutschland
At times we forget what an amazing wonder the Bundesrepublik Deutschland was. At the end of the World War II, Germany was one of the sickest and cruelest human societies in history, ever. Not too many years later, it was one of the best and most successful societies ever.
By the 1980s, living standards had caught up to the United States, with the provision of public goods sometimes superior. The country was fully democratic, pro-Western, and largely pro-American.
Their rail system and postal service were amongst the best ever created.
For thinkers of note there were Hans Blumenberg, Habermas, Peter Weiss, Gadamer, late Heidegger and late Carl Schmitt, Reinhart Koselleck, the underrated Klaus Theweleit, Niklas Luhmann, and perhaps you value some of the other members of the Frankfurt School.
The visual arts were very strong, with Richter, Polke, Baselitz, Beuys, Penck, Palermo, and much more.
Music produced Stockhausen, Henze, Lachenmann, Rihm, Zimmerman, Kraftwerk, Can, and all of Krautrock, later techno, though right at the time of unification rather than during the BRD per se. The list of vocalists, instrumentalists, and conductors is strong. Was there anywhere better for hearing opera?
Perhaps I prefer the fiction from Austria and Switzerland, but at the very least Germany provided a major market for those authors and it was an extraordinarily literate country with amazing bookstores. For domestic authors there were Böll, Patrick Süskind, Siegfried Lenz, Wolfgang Koeppen, can I count Uwe Johnson?, and Arno Schmidt maybe? I do not like Grass, but it seems wrong not to list him.
The food could be very good, especially in the southwest. There were Michelin star restaurants all over the country (still are, to be clear on this point). So many well-functioning cities, with many of the world’s best transit systems. Lots of nuclear power and a strong industrial base. West Berlin was an exciting city with an air of mystery. Some might say no speed limit on the Autobahn, though I am less sure that was a virtue. Plenty of beautiful women and reasonable attitudes toward sex.
If you had to choose, what was the worst thing about the country? No shopping on Sundays? Workplace and shopping hours discrimination against women? Too much smoking? Obsession with Waldsterben?
Are there features of post-unification Germany that can compare to this earlier era? So much seems not to work well. So many policy mistakes have been made. So much leadership lost in the areas mentioned above. So much pessimism, sadly a lot of it seems to be justified.
Where did all the good performance go? And why did it leave? Lack of a communist enemy? Absorption of East Germany? The simple accretion of distance from pre-WWII German creativity?
The wonder that was the Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Johannes, we hardly knew ye.