Recently, I have seen two innovations in retail, AI cashiers and human cashiers but working remotely from another country such as the Philippines and making much lower wages than domestic workers (examples are below). I fear that the AI cashiers will outcompete the Philippine cas … | Continue reading
In this article we revive, extend and improve the approach used in a series of influential papers written in the 2000s to estimate how changes in the supply of immigrant workers affected natives’ wages in the US. We begin by extending the analysis to include the more recent years … | Continue reading
SB 1047 was written, near as I can tell, to satisfy the concerns of a small group of people who believe widespread diffusion of AI constitutes an existential risk to humanity. It contains references to hypothetical models that autonomously engage in illegal activity causing tens … | Continue reading
UK is a finance economy and EU/world ex-US has had terrible stock market performance since then. Germany survived (not thrived) on manufacturing (also better positioned vis-a-vis Eastern Europe), France on luxuries and maybe a bit on tourism, Nordics on oil, Benelux on ??? (not s … | Continue reading
1. Self-navigating car navigating traffic in India. 2. Do progressive prosecutors lead to higher crime rates? 3. “…we find that consumers form more negative impressions of and are less persuaded by influencers who disable social media comments.” 4. California bill to regulate AI … | Continue reading
There are just a few spots left for the Public Choice Outreach Conference! This is a great opportunity to hear from excellent speakers including Garett Jones, Peter Boettke, Johanna Mollerstrom and more! The conference is a crash course in public choice. It’s entirely free. Indee … | Continue reading
Monthly inflation in Argentina could fall below 10% in April, a sign that the government’s policies are working, President Javier Milei said Sunday in a phone interview with LN+. “Wages are already starting to beat inflation,” Milei said. “The fight against inflation is yielding … | Continue reading
These annecdotes do not reflect the data . From (remain leaning) UK in A Changing Europe https://ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/UKICE-Trade-Tracker-Q1-24.pdf UK trade with the EU, as a per cent of total trade in volume terms in Q3 2023, was at its highest levels since Q … | Continue reading
The Catholic advocacy group Catholic Answers released an AI priest called “Father Justin” earlier this week — but quickly defrocked the chatbot after it repeatedly claimed it was a real member of the clergy. Earlier in the week, Futurism engaged in an exchange with the bot, which … | Continue reading
1. Lazarus Lake update. 2. Robin Hanson responds to Scott Alexander. I do not entirely agree with Robin on this one, but his rebuttal beats back the initial critique, which did not much consider overtreatment or medical error. I might add that studies of Christian Scientists and … | Continue reading
I haven’t been following these countries closely, so I don’t have any “takes,” but I will start paying more attention: 1. Philippines: Growth has been averaging about six percent a year since 2012 (Economist link, gated). 2. Egypt: Has been averaging four percent a year growth, a … | Continue reading
Take the basic non-growth of the UK economy since 2008 (productivity, real wages, per capita gdp) and compare it to their peer countries (which are those?). If you had to assign the causes of that shortfall to various factors, how would you do it? Recently I had lunch with a few … | Continue reading
Public debt ratios in Portugal and Greece have declined at an unprecedented pace from their pandemic peak. via @DanielKral1 pic.twitter.com/D6Dux8zJsL — Philipp Heimberger (@heimbergecon) April 27, 2024 Greece of course did break the bank, but note the United States is much riche … | Continue reading
1. NYT obituary for Michael Jensen. 2. Brain-like computer with water and salt? 3. More on the economics of non-compete agreements. 4. Chile is on a path to TFR of 1.0, and soon. 5. Women now author a majority of the U.S. books published. 6. Jail sentence for climate activist who … | Continue reading
Challengers is a good and original movie. Imagine a 2024 rom com, except the behavior and conventions actually are taken from 2024, and with no apologies. The woman says the word “****ing” a lot, and no one treats this as inappropriate or unusual. There is bisexuality and poly. S … | Continue reading
The author is Kathleen Duval, and the subtitle is A Millennium in North America. This is an excellent book. Here is one excerpt, strung together by me from three separate pages: By 1400, the cities of Cahokia, Moundville, and the Huhugam were abandoned. People continued to live n … | Continue reading
1. Nandan Nilekani’s vision for the “Finternet” is to enable individuals to transfer any financial asset, in any amount, at any time, to anyone, anywhere in the world—cheaply, securely, and near-instantaneously. Andy Mukherjee summarizes it here. 2. Claims about Chinese LLMs. And … | Continue reading
Apologies! I took down my post based on this tweet, which upon further reflection struck me as premature. Does anyone have actual word from the would-be co-author as to what happened? Note that sometimes individuals don’t want to be co-authors on particular papers, especially if … | Continue reading
Hassan Sayed, a fifth year PhD candidate in economics, it seems was banned from Princeton. Ostensibly for partaking in illegal demonstrations. I am not saying whether this is justified or not, as I do not know the circumstances. I can assure you I am fine with “being tough on stu … | Continue reading
In Germany, robots must obey the sabbath pic.twitter.com/vphLpXAA0e — Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) April 25, 2024 As for Canada, “Justice Minister defends house arrest power for people feared to commit a hate crime in future.“ The post The work culture that is German, somethi … | Continue reading
From the excellent Doug Irwin: Do trade reforms that significantly reduce import barriers lead to faster economic growth? In the twenty-five years since Rodríguez and Rodrik’s (2000) critical survey of empirical work on this question, new research has tried to overcome the variou … | Continue reading
Yes I will be doing a Conversation with him. Here is Wikipedia: Paul Bloom…is a Canadian American psychologist. He is the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of psychology and cognitive science at Yale University and Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto. H … | Continue reading
1. Works in Progress will be running an “Invisible College” in Cambridge, UK. 2. How much was Britain already industrializing in the 17th century? 3. Something, something, blah blah blah, but probably interesting? Research article is here. 4. “We find that once the sales of forei … | Continue reading
I agree with Tyler, that the FTC ban on non-competes is overly broad and not tailored to fields where the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. Additionally, the FTC’s authority to enact this rule, rather than Congress, is questionable. Nevertheless, I don’t think banning non-competes … | Continue reading
Here is a new paper by Sara Abrahamsson. Perhaps there is Norwegian exceptionalism at work, but the results reflect my expectations reasonably closely. The basic setting is that smart phones were banned in middle school, but at varying (and exogenous) rates around the country. He … | Continue reading
Michael Stack writes me: “Hi Tyler – you wrote about preferring current airport procedures to pre-9/11 procedures. Do you plan to elaborate on this? I have a hard time understanding why you’d feel that way. Here is the list I produced – these are guesses as to why you might feel … | Continue reading
Why did I deepfake myself? To see if conversing with an AI-generated version of myself can lead to self-reflection, new insights into my thought patterns, and deep truths. pic.twitter.com/DWODoZ9lXL — Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman) April 24, 2024 The post It’s happening, Reid Hoffma … | Continue reading
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, basically you should charge them fees rather than discourage them through other means> Here is one excerpt: By this reasoning, the Japanese decision to raise bullet train prices for tourists is exactly the right approach. In the me … | Continue reading
1. AI Camera turns your images into poetry. 2. Highly capable model locally on your phone. 3. Clara Piano reviews GOAT. “Perhaps, in his emphasis on the importance of ideas, Cowen reveals that he is ultimately a Simonian. After all, the human mind is the ultimate resource.” 4. Ma … | Continue reading
In an excellent, deep-dive Alice Evans looks at patriarchy in Egypt using pictures drawn from four thousand years of history. Here are three examples. A wealthy woman, shown at right circa 116 CE. Unveiled, immodest, looking out at the world. A person to be reckoned with. After t … | Continue reading
1. A literalist reading of Civil War. 2. Why it is so hard to get a reservation nowadays (New Yorker). 3. “There are currently 682 #AI-related bills (581 of them in the states) on the @MultiStateAssoc legislative tracker.” Link here. 4. The econometrics of social media and mental … | Continue reading
Several common measures — like employing a chief diversity officer, offering diversity training or having a diverse board — were not correlated with decreased discrimination in entry-level hiring, the researchers found. But one thing strongly predicted less discrimination: a cent … | Continue reading
Learn why converting strings to OffsetDateTime objects is crucial for handling date and time in Java applications. | Continue reading
Learn how to implement a Builder Pattern in Java 8. Related Stories Builder Pattern and Inheritance | Continue reading
Discover when casting to String or using String.valueOf() is most useful. | Continue reading
Learn different approaches to performing update-or-insert operations using Spring Data JPA. | Continue reading
Forthcoming from the QJE, here is a new paper by Andrea Matanga: The Neolithic revolution saw the independent development of agriculture among at least seven unconnected hunter-gatherer populations. I propose that the rapid spread of agricultural techniques resulted from increase … | Continue reading
1. Are Indian women stronger relative supporters of Modi? 2. Apple to build on-device AI? 3. The remarkable economic recovery of Sri Lanka?. 4. “UK alcohol-related deaths up one-third on pre-pandemic levels…” (FT) 5. New Cass Sunstein book on campus free speech. 6. The Straussian … | Continue reading
Take a look at how the number of federal regulations and policies governing research at universities has dramatically increased over the years. This adding an enormous cost of doing research. (Source COGR) pic.twitter.com/ezqAsLUIIj — Denis Wirtz (@deniswirtz) April 20, 2024 Via … | Continue reading
Dobbs, of course, was the Supreme Court decision saying that the constitution does not provide a right to abortion, thus leading to restrictions on abortion in many states. The pictures is from The Economist, the original paper is here. The post Tying the Knot appeared first on M … | Continue reading
These are usually worth pondering, as at the very least you will learn something. Here is a hate-worthy paragraph from an earlier Bloomberg column of mine: …note that higher real estate prices, to the extent they result from immigrant demands, largely translate into capital gains … | Continue reading
Learn how to get the compressed data in a byte array when using the GZIP file format. | Continue reading
Explore the reasons behind the “Not a Managed Type” Exception in Spring Data JPA. | Continue reading
Explore the process of setting up Simple Java Mail and learn how to send emails, including attachments and HTML content, handle exceptions, and more. | Continue reading
If someone demographically normal and not especially at-risk wants to serve as a guinea pig, what is the optimal allocation of that resource? Is there any formal discussion of this question? I know they say “there is always an Effective Altruism blog post,” but is there? Mostly I … | Continue reading
1. Rasheed Griffith reggae playlist. 2. Poland got rid of compulsory homework for grade school. 3. Suicide rate trends for German teen females. 4. Important job ad for finding and cultivating talent in Brazil, no Portuguese required. 5. Plans for the REPO market? 6. Claims about … | Continue reading
The amazing Gukesh (17 years old!) is half a point ahead with one round remaining today. Three players — Nakamura, Caruana, and Nepo — trail him by half a point. Naka is playing Gukesh, and of course Naka will try to win. But what about Caruana vs. Nepo? Yes, each must try to win … | Continue reading
He is one of the greatest of living American historians, here is from Wikipedia: Alan Shaw Taylor (born June 17, 1955) is an American historian and scholar who is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia. A specialist in the earl … | Continue reading