AI and the new world of cheating

by  Tyler Cowen

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

A subtler truth is that a lot of the cheating will be modest and marginal rather than blatant. Consider computer cheating in chess. If you find a way to consult the computer every move, you will win every game with near-perfect play. You will also be caught immediately. So you might cheat for only a few moves every game — enough to help but not so much to be detected. Given that both sides will employ countermeasures, and detect suspicious instances of clearly superior performance, a lot of cheating will be pretty mediocre, and deliberately so.

As decisive moments approach, games and competitions might become less honest — and tensions in the crowd will rise as people wonder whether they are watching the real thing or some AI-aided simulacrum. Brilliancies will forever be called into question. Dishonest players, in turn, will have to carefully consider when to exercise their de facto “cheating privileges.”

Most of my piece is about non-chess issues, not chess per se.  As for chess, here is a Ken Regan podcast with James Altucher, on all of these questions.  Ken is the A+ expert on these questions.

The new Alexander J. Field book

by  Tyler Cowen in

Field is one of the world’s greatest economic historians, and the title is The Economic Consequences of U.S. Mobilization for The Second World War.  I am just starting to read it, here is some of the early material:

The initial aim of this book is to document what for many will surely be the surprisingly disappointing record of manufacturing productivity growth during the war.  A second objective is to understand the effects of the war on the level and rate of growth of potential output in the postwar period.  Getting a fix on that is what matters when we ask whether or to what degree the war laid the foundations for growth in the years after 1948…

The empirical sections of this book will show, inter alia, that both labor productivity and TFP in manufacturing declined during the war in comparison with 1941 and grew anemically after the war…

A principal argument can be stated succinctly: TFP in manufacturing fell during the war because the conflict forced a wrenching shift away from products and processes in which manufacturers had a great deal of experience toward the production of goods in which they had little.

Obviously an important work, I look forward to reading the rest.  Due out October 18.

The Midlife Crisis

by  Tyler Cowen in

This paper documents a longitudinal crisis of midlife among the inhabitants of rich nations. Yet middle-aged citizens in our data sets are close to their peak earnings, have typically experienced little or no illness, reside in some of the safest countries in the world, and live in the most prosperous era in human history. This is paradoxical and troubling. The finding is consistent, however, with the prediction – one little-known to economists – of Elliott Jaques (1965). Our analysis does not rest on elementary cross-sectional analysis. Instead the paper uses panel and through-time data on, in total, approximately 500,000 individuals. It checks that the key results are not due to cohort effects. Nor do we rely on simple life-satisfaction measures. The paper shows that there are approximately quadratic hill-shaped patterns in data on midlife suicide, sleeping problems, alcohol dependence, concentration difficulties, memory problems, intense job strain, disabling headaches, suicidal feelings, and extreme depression. We believe the seriousness of this societal problem has not been grasped by the affluent world’s policy-makers.

That is from a new NBER working paper by Osea Giuntella, Sally McManus, Redzo Mujcic, Andrew J. Oswald, Nattavudh Powdthavee & Ahmed Tohamy.

Covid-19 and labor supply

by  Tyler Cowen in

We show that Covid-19 illnesses persistently reduce labor supply. Using an event study, we estimate that workers with week-long Covid-19 work absences are 7 percentage points less likely to be in the labor force one year later compared to otherwise-similar workers who do not miss a week of work for health reasons. Our estimates suggest Covid-19 illnesses have reduced the U.S. labor force by approximately 500,000 people (0.2 percent of adults) and imply an average forgone earnings per Covid-19 absence of at least $9,000, about 90 percent of which reflects lost labor supply beyond the initial absence week.

That is from a new NBER working paper, by Gopi Shah Goda and Evan J. Soltas, of relevance both to Long Covid and our current human capital crisis.

Tuesday assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. Claims about Truss and me.

2. “Take a 4-way stop intersection, and paint some lines approximately 3 car lengths away from the intersection on each lane approaching the intersection. Have people treat the intersection as a 4-way stop, but have people who stopped on or in front of the new lines go through the intersection at the same time as the person in front of them, unless someone in front of them makes a left turn.”  Link here.

3. AI prompt markets in everything.

4. Priests and cars in Milwaukee.

5. NYT obituary for Javier Marías.

6. NYT obituary for Jean-Luc Godard, of course you should see all of his essential films.

7. Excellent WSJ book review defending Hayek and Friedman.

Plastic Might Be Making You Fat

by  Alex Tabarrok in

WashPost: An emerging view among scientists is that one major overlooked component in obesity is almost certainly our environment — in particular, the pervasive presence within it of chemicals which, even at very low doses, act to disturb the normal functioning of human metabolism, upsetting the body’s ability to regulate its intake and expenditure of energy.

Some of these chemicals, known as “obesogens,” directly boost the production of specific cell types and fatty tissues associated with obesity. Unfortunately, these chemicals are used in many of the most basic products of modern life including plastic packaging, clothes and furniture, cosmetics, food additives, herbicides and pesticides.

Ten years ago the idea of chemically induced obesity was something of a fringe hypothesis, but not anymore.

“Obesogens are certainly a contributing factor to the obesity epidemic,” is what Bruce Blumberg, an expert on obesity and endocrine-disrupting chemicals from the University of California, Irvine, told me by email. “The difficulty is determining what fraction of obesity is related to chemical exposure.”

An important piece of evidence is something I pointed to in my post The Animals are Also Getting Fat namely, cats and dogs are getting fatter and so are rats and so (very importantly) are control mice fed a very standard diet. I hadn’t realized there is also some experimental evidence.

 In particular, consequences of chemical exposure may not appear during the lifetime of an exposed organism but can be passed down through so-called epigenetic mechanisms to offspring even several generations away. A typical example is tributyltin or TBT, a chemical used in wood preservatives, among other things. In experiments exposing mice to low and supposedly safe levels of TBT, Blumberg and his colleagues found significantly increased fat accumulation in the next three generations.

Overall, I find the chemical story plausible–people in the past, even rich people, just didn’t get fat so easily–but my skepticism rises whenever I hear the word epigenetics.

The (royal monetary) equilibrium

by  Tyler Cowen

There are 29 billion British coins in circulation with Queen Elizabeth II’s face on them. Since she first appeared on the coins, a year after her ascension in 1952, the Royal Mint has used five different portraits. And on all of them, she faces to the right.

Now it’s King Charles III’s turn to be on the coins, but he’ll most likely be facing the other direction.

Since the reign of Charles II in the 17th century, the monarch has typically faced the opposite position of their predecessor on coins, according to the Royal Family’s website. Because Queen Elizabeth faced to the right, the new king will presumably be shown facing left.

There was one exception: Edward VIII, who was king for less than one year in 1936, faced to the left because that is what he preferred, even though the monarch before him, George V, also looked left. The tradition was resumed with George VI, who faced left. He served until he died in 1952.

Here is the full NYT article.

Newfoundland notes, St. John’s and environs

by  Tyler Cowen in

“Canada’s youngest province and Britain’s oldest colony” is what some of them say.

About 60 percent of St. John’s is Irish in background, and most people in the city above age 45 have a noticeable Irish accent, albeit with some Canadianisms thrown in.  Those accents are close to those of Waterford, Ireland, and many Irish from the southeast of the country came over in the 1790-1820 period.  The younger residents of St. John’s sound like other Canadians.

If you walk into the various pubs and houses of music, of which there are quite a few, you are most likely to hear offshoot forms of acoustic Celtic folk music.

The scenery of St. John’s reminds me of the suburbs of Wellington, New Zealand.  On top of that, many of the homes are Victorian, as in the Wellington area.  In St. John’s the row homes are called “jellybeans” because of their bright colors.  They are in a uniform style because of a major fire in the city in 1892.  A jellybean house near center city now runs between 300k-400k Canadian, the result of a big price hike once some offshore oil was discovered.  The city is hilly and the major churches are Anglican, even though the Irish migrants were almost entirely Catholics.

Indians and Filipinos are playing some role in revitalizing the city.  Not long ago about one thousand Ukrainians arrived.

In the Sheraton hotel the old mailbox is still “Royal Mail Newfoundland” and not “Royal Mail Canada.”  Newfoundland of course was a dominion country of its own from 1907-1934, and a legally odd part of Britain 1934-1949, when it joined Canada through a 52% referendum result.  In 1890 a NAFTA-like trade agreement was negotiated with the United States, but Canada worked Great Britain to nix the whole thing.  A later agreement in 1902 was in essence vetoed by New England.  Newfoundland had earlier rejected confederation with Canada in 1860.

Newfoundland ran up major debts in WWI, and tried to relieve them by selling Labrador to Canada.  Canada refused.

Apart from the major museum (“The Rooms”), there are few signs of the indigenous.

Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless message on Signal Hill on December 12, 1901.  In the 1950s, Gander was the world’s busiest international airport, because of all the planes that could not cross the Atlantic directly.

As you might expect to find in a small country, but not in a small province, you regularly meet people who seem too smart or too attractive for their current jobs.  Many head to Calgary, but a lot of them don’t want to leave.

It has the warmest winter of any Canadian province.

Terre is the place to eat.  The scallops are excellent everywhere.  Fish and chips are a specialty too.

I would not say it is radically exciting here, but overall I would be long St. John’s.  If nothing else, it makes for an excellent three-day weekend or nature-oriented week-long trip, and I hardly know any Americans who have tried that.

Monday assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. Rain as an instrumental variable.

2. With and without digital transmission.  #chessdrama

3. What is wrong with the Russian military?

4. Is climate change priced into bond risk?

5. “…tech firms hired one in seven newly minted PhDs [from ten leading economics graduate programmes in the US] in 2022, up from less than one in 20 in 2018…”  Link here.

6. Why is Ukraine right now making net transfers to the IMF?

7. AI allows dead woman to answer questions at her funeral.

Richard Hanania interviews me

by  Tyler Cowen in

78 minutes.  With transcript.  It starts off as a normal “talent conversation,” but soon takes other paths.  We discuss feminization in some detail, libertarianism too.  Here is part of Richard’s summary:

Another one of Tyler’s traits that came out in this conversation is his detached skepticism regarding fashionable intellectual trends. For example, I’d taken it for granted that social media has made elite culture more pessimistic and angry, but his answer when I asked about the topic made me reconsider my view.

Interesting throughout, and here is one excerpt:

Tyler: It seems to me social media are probably bad for 12- to 14-year-old girls, and probably good for most of the rest of us. That would be my most intuitive answer, but very subject to revision.

Richard: I think it’s good. I mean, I think it’s good for me…

Tyler: But they’re bad for a lot of academics. I guess, they get classified in…

Richard: They might be at the…

Tyler: They get lumped in with the 12 to 14-year-old girls, right?

Richard: [laughs] There might be a similarity there.

Tyler: They have something in common.

Recommended.

China loan fact of the day

by  Tyler Cowen

Three of the largest recipients of China’s rescue lending have been Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Argentina, which together have received as much as $32.83bn since 2017, according to data compiled by AidData, a research lab at William & Mary, a university in the US.

Other countries receiving rescue lending from Chinese state institutions included Kenya, Venezuela, Ecuador, Angola, Laos, Suriname, Belarus, Egypt, Mongolia and Ukraine, according to AidData, which did not provide details for these countries.

Here is more from the FT.  I don’t actually see this ending well.

*The Culture Transplant: How Migrants Make the Economies They Move To a Lot Like the Ones They Left*

by  Tyler Cowen in

That is the new forthcoming book by Garett Jones (and his wisdom), I am very much looking forward to reading/rereading the final version of this one!  (See the link for my blurb based on a pre-pub reading.)  Here is the Amazon summary:

Over the last two decades, as economists began using big datasets and modern computing power to reveal the sources of national prosperity, their statistical results kept pointing toward the power of culture to drive the wealth of nations. In The Culture Transplant, Garett Jones documents the cultural foundations of cross-country income differences, showing that immigrants import cultural attitudes from their homelands―toward saving, toward trust, and toward the role of government―that persist for decades, and likely for centuries, in their new national homes. Full assimilation in a generation or two, Jones reports, is a myth. And the cultural traits migrants bring to their new homes have enduring effects upon a nation’s economic potential.

Built upon mainstream, well-reviewed academic research that hasn’t pierced the public consciousness, this book offers a compelling refutation of an unspoken consensus that a nation’s economic and political institutions won’t be changed by immigration. Jones refutes the common view that we can discuss migration policy without considering whether migration can, over a few generations, substantially transform the economic and political institutions of a nation. And since most of the world’s technological innovations come from just a handful of nations, Jones concludes, the entire world has a stake in whether migration policy will help or hurt the quality of government and thus the quality of scientific breakthroughs in those rare innovation powerhouses.

You can pre-order here, due out November 15.