How AI will change student evaluation

by  Tyler Cowen in

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt:

The main point is that grades will come to mean something different. Traditionally, at least in theory, grades have been a measure of how well a student understands the material. If they got an A in US history, presumably they could identify many of the founders. In the future, an A will mark a kind of conscientiousness: It will mean that, at the very least, they applied their AI consistently to the questions at hand. Whether that counts as “cheating” or “allowed” will depend on the policies of the relevant educational institution, but anti-AI software is not reliable and anti-AI rules cannot be enforced very readily.

“Applied their AI consistently” might sound unimpressive as a certification. But I have known many students over the years who don’t meet even that standard. They may neglect to hand in homework or fail to monitor due dates. They may or may not know the relevant material — often they do not — and it is not at all clear to me that current AI technology will automatically enable them to get good grades.

In other words, an academic system replete with AI is still is testing for something, even if it is much less glorious than what we might have hoped for. Over time grades will come to indicate not so much knowledge of the material as a student’s ability to be organized and prepared.

The remainder of the column considers other possible changes, including greater reliance on oral exams and work done in class.

Is this about the poll or about the people? (model this)

by  Tyler Cowen in

EU May Ban Payments for Milk, Sperm and Blood

by  Alex Tabarrok in

BrusselsSignal: The European Parliament has approved a draft regulation banning payments for breast milk, sperm, blood and other “substances of human origin” (SoHO).

Billed as an attempt to increase safety across the bloc, the ban allegedly aims to ensure that those who are financially disadvantaged within the bloc are not subject to undue pressure to donate their cells and bodily fluids.

Hmmm. Why not ban the sale of labor to protect financially disadvantaged labor donors from undue pressure? Indeed, why not require that dangerous jobs like mining pay low wages so we can be sure that no one is induced to do these jobs by financial pressure?

More prosaically, the European Union falls short of producing all the blood plasma it needs to meet its demand for life-saving medicine. Consequently, the European Union depends on imports—primarily from compensated donors in the United States—to address its plasma deficit. Should the proposed EU legislation be enacted, the deficit is likely to get worse because Germany, Austria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, currently permit financial compensation. Indeed the U.S. and these EU countries together account for 90% of the global plasma supply. A ban on paid donations within the EU will thus decrease the quantity of plasma supplied from Germany, Austria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic and force the EU to rely even more on imports from the US.

The US is also the world’s biggest exporter of human sperm because US sperm donors can be compensated and remain anonymous (depending on the state). US donors are also carefully screened for quality, in part due to US regulations and in part due to market demand for information about the donors. Denmark is also a major exporter of sperm, in part because it, too, allows financial incentives to donors. Reduced donations from Denmark will make the European Union increasingly dependent on U.S. sperm supplies. Indeed, after Canada banned paid sperm donors in 2004, the supply of Canadian donors plummeted to just 35 (!) and US sperm exports to Canada increased. Unintended consequences, eh?

Creating EU wide standards for testing of blood, sperm and breast milk to allow greater flows across borders is a good idea. Shortages of baby formula in the US, for example, led to a valuable increase in breast milk donations and sales but it would probably be better if more breast milk donations went through a qualified milk bank rather than through Facebook (and the same is also true for sperm banks and sperm donations). But there is no call for banning paid donation.

Paying donors of blood, sperm and breast milk is an ethical way to increase the quantity supplied and it can be done while ensuring that the donations are high-quality and safe.

Does an AI Pause make sense?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Should we lobby governments to impose a moratorium on AI research? Since we don’t enforce pauses on most new technologies, I hope the reader will grant that the burden of proof is on those who advocate for such a moratorium. We should only advocate for such heavy-handed government action if it’s clear that the benefits of doing so would significantly outweigh the costs.[1] In this essay, I’ll argue an AI pause would increase the risk of catastrophically bad outcomes, in at least three different ways:

  1. Reducing the quality of AI alignment research by forcing researchers to exclusively test ideas on models like GPT-4 or weaker.
  2. Increasing the chance of a “fast takeoff” in which one or a handful of AIs rapidly and discontinuously become more capable, concentrating immense power in their hands.
  3. Pushing capabilities research underground, and to countries with looser regulations and safety requirements.

That is from Nora Belrose, here is much more.  Via N.

Who in America has mental health problems?

by  Tyler Cowen in

There is a new EJPH paper on these questions by Junxiu Liu, et.al.  Let’s start with some geography:

The prevalence of symptoms varied significantly across states, ranging from 27.9% (95% CI = 23.8%, 32.0%) in Florida to 46.4% (95% CI = 41.9%, 50.9%) in New Hampshire…

How much of that is a sunshine effect?  The full ranking of states supposedly is given in their Appendix A, but I can’t find that on-line.  If you can, please let us know.

Furthermore, when it comes to your parents — income good, education bad!  Graduate education yikes:

Youths with parents with higher education had more mental health symptoms; the prevalence of mental health symptom was 37.4% (95% CI = 36.3%, 38.5%) among youths whose parents had graduate degrees compared with 30.3% (95% CI = 23.8%, 36.8%) among those whose parents had less than a high school–level education. By contrast, youths from households with the highest income level (≥ $200 000) had a lower prevalence of mental health symptoms at 30.7% (95% CI = 29.1%, 32.3%) than did those from households with the lowest income level (< $25 000) at 37.3% (95% CI = 34.8%, 39.8%).

We’re into uh-oh territory here.  As for ethnic groups, mental health problems measure as worst for whites and also for an assorted group known as “other.”

Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.

Claims about food allergies

by  Tyler Cowen in

I find it is very difficult to trust written material on this topic, nonetheless here is a hypothesis I had not heard before:

So why have our immune systems suddenly gone haywire? One theory notes that we (mostly) eradicated hookworms by the 1980s in the United States. And roundworms. And tapeworms. All the classic parasites are mostly kaput. Without those actual threats, our immune system downshifts to tackle the biggest possible threat on the horizon. Which, these days, might be cashew butter or Camembert.

“It’s looking for stuff to do and it’s staying busy,” Warren said. “But it’s busy doing stupid stuff like reacting to walnuts and birch pollen.”

Some support for this theory comes from anecdotes offered by experts who infected themselves with hookworms to distract their overactive immune systems. While this method achieved some success in curbing stubborn allergies and other conditions, it seems unlikely we’ll see a massive experiment anytime soon that randomly infects healthy Americans with hookworms. Still, this so-called hygiene hypothesis helps explain why allergies may be on the march: Back when they were more widespread, hookworms and their friends may actually have reined in our immune systems’ most aggressive tendencies.

Here is more from Andrew Van Dam.

Sunday assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. “Mobility indicators measuring voluntary decisions to socially distance, comprising measures of visitors/visits to recreational locations, and mobility proxy measuring duration of hours away from home show that a lower prevalence of long-term orientation traits explains persistent resistance to social distancing.”  Link here, speculative.

2. Neanderthal genes and Covid risk? (WSJ)

3. “Masked ‘Boot Girls’ Are Freeing Booted Cars All Over Atlanta.”

4. Victor Fuchs has passed away.

5. Why it took the FDA so long to review the disputed cold remedy (NYT).  And flying taxi executive to head the FAA.

6. “Japan’s Productivity Ranks Lowest Among G7 Nations for 50 Straight Years.”  Why hasn’t YIMBY done more to fix that?

Rome markets in everything

by  Tyler Cowen in

Just down the Via di Ripetta, in the heart of Rome, the freshly unveiled Bulgari Hotel Roma, with hallways showcasing jewels, has a premier one-bedroom suite overlooking the Mausoleum of Augustus. It costs 38,000 euros, or about $41,000, a night.

At least at the upper end, is Rome making a comeback?:

Rome’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, says the hoteliers are perfectly sane, and know a future good thing when they see it. He points to better restaurants, restored museums, new ones in the works. Post-pandemic tourists have made Rome a prime destination, though he allows that the spritz-thirsty hordes settling in Airbnbs are a threat to the city’s soul.

Here is more from the NYT.

What should I ask Masaaki Suzuki?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him.  Here is the opening of his Wikipedia page:

Masaaki Suzuki (鈴木 雅明, Suzuki Masaaki, born 29 April 1954) is a Japanese organist, harpsichordist and conductor, and the founder and music director of the Bach Collegium Japan. With this ensemble he is recording the complete choral works of Johann Sebastian Bach for the Swedish label BIS Records, for which he is also recording Bach’s concertos, orchestral suites, and solo works for harpsichord and organ. He is also an artist-in-residence at Yale University and the principal guest conductor of its Schola Cantorum, and has conducted orchestras and choruses around the world.

He is not just an incredible artist, he is one of the most remarkable achievers of our time.  So what should I ask him?

IFOs

by  Alex Tabarrok in

While strolling in the garden one day…a priest said to him, ‘Father Joseph, oh, how beautiful God has made heaven!’ Then Joseph, as if he had been called to heaven, gave a loud shriek, leapt off the ground, flew through the air, and knelt down atop an olive tree, and—as witnesses declared in his beatification inquest—that branch on which he rested waved as if a bird were perched upon it, and he remained up there about half an hour” (Paolo Agelli, Vita del Beato Giuseppe di Copertino, 1753).

What kind of nonsense is this? Who is this liar quoted above? Human beings can’t fly or kneel on slender tree limbs like little birds. So, how is it that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—the very era that gave birth to aggressive skepticism and empirical science—countless people swore that they had witnessed such events? And how is it that some of these sworn testimonies are legal records, archived alongside lawsuits and murder trials, from all sorts of people, not just illiterate peasants but also elites at the apex of the social, intellectual, and political hierarchy?

…Levitation is one of the best of all entry points into the history of the impossible, principally because it is an event for which we have an overabundance of testimonies, not just in Western Christianity but throughout all of world history.

Carlos Eire argues in CommonWeal that these events should be taken seriously. Eire is cagey about what he means by take seriously but I agree that we can say something about the form such visions take and when and why they rise and fall in frequency. Eire notes, for example, that reporting of such events changed significantly with the Protestant Reformation.

…Protestants of all stripes also rejected the proposition that God had continued to perform miracles beyond the first century, a doctrine that came to be known as “the cessation of miracles” or “the cessation of the charismata.” The miracles mentioned in the Bible had really occurred, they argued, but such marvels became unnecessary after the birth of the early Church and would never happen again. Consequently, all of those miraculous supernatural phenomena associated with holiness throughout the Middle Ages, including levitation, could not be the work of God. But by designating these phenomena “false”—that is, not attributable to God—Protestants did not declare them impossible. As most Protestant Reformers and their later disciples saw it, ecstatic seizures, levitations, luminous irradiance, and all such phenomena did in fact occur, but they were all diabolical in origin.

…Given the religious, social, political, and intellectual turmoil caused by the advent of Protestantism and its great paradigm shift, it is not at all surprising that miracles became a marker of difference between Catholics and Protestants, as well as a flash point of discord and a polemical weapon.

That’s right but the author would have done better to refer to the work of my GMU colleagues. GMU (oddly?) is a leading center of experts on witch trials. See most notably Leeson and Russ and Johnson and Koyama.

People don’t report seeing flying people the way they used to. Is that because people have become more rational or because the socially acceptable form of vision has changed?

How often do I think of ancient Rome?

by  Tyler Cowen in

That question was first a Twitter meme, it is now a Washington Post story.  The question is supposed to pick up something about the manliness of the manly mind?  Who even knows these days?

In short, I think about ancient Rom pretty often!  But not as much as I think about ancient Greece, and typically in reactive settings.  Some of my CWT guests have some connection to ancient Rome, and I must prep for them.  (This can be more guests than you might think — consider topics of Shakespeare, Montesquieu, Christianity, or even a China scholar.)  I travel in the former Roman empire fairly often, usually at least once a year.  I see pseudo-Roman architecture almost every time I go to Washington, D.C., which is maybe once every two weeks.  There is a copy of the new Ovid translation sitting in the kitchen, and it has been there for a few months because I do not currently have time to read it.  I see periodic Twitter updates about a Nat Friedman-Daniel Gross AI project to read ancient Roman scrolls.  Christian references to ancient Rome cross my path all the time.  Does it count to see Roman numerals?  To write the words “per se”?  To notice it is the month of August?

But I don’t just sit around “thinking of ancient Rome.”  There are no works from ancient Rome that I long to reread, and there is no ancient Roman music to listen to.  I’m not going to rewatch Ben Hur.  I was in Rome itself about two years ago, which was recent enough.  At this point, my reactions to signals, snippets, and trailers of ancient Rome are more than enough for me.