This is another area In which I readily agree with Oren's views. I do think it's a little unfair to expect AI to give a useful or meaningful analysis of an economic issue since the economics discipline itself can't. Economics has always suffered from insufficient scope. Oren has pointed this out in different ways and it's something I've understood since Econ 101 decades ago. Economics and politics are obviously intricately connected. I believe substantially more so than even first appears. Politics and culture are also intertwined. Thus economics and culture are also. Economic measures that seem consistent or reliable tend also to be not very useful. Dogmas concerning growth for example aren't really meaningful. Piketty showed economic growth in developed countries is Mostly population growth. Actual economic growth exists but is far smaller than conventionally understood. So even growth in GDP is in itself misleading, besides having little to say about how people are living.
Here, I digress. I'm curious what Oren might say about the following. The above has implications for policy adjustments toward sustainability, which should be a true conservative's goal. I don't conceive of sustainability as stagnation; far from it. It is a more considered approach to economic policy that actually does account for workers, consumers, owners, bystanders, externalities and the future. Move fast and break things is pretty much the opposite and an appalling attitude. "Deeply consider the ramifications of possible actions and move deliberately for the benefit of all" seems like both a more conservative and progressive approach to policy. Innovation implemented in a way that actually improves lives without hidden damage in other domains is the aim.
When we have actual emergencies we must respond quickly the best we can. But we can anticipate most of what we experience as emergencies and disasters. To a conservative, for whom stability and security is extremely important, a substantial part of policy should be aimed at preventing and mitigating disasters and emergencies Before they occur. We can anticipate for example, that the satellites we rely on for so much could be wiped out by either a political event-war, some unanticipated technical event, or an astronomical event. It is insane that we don't have robust ground based duplicative redundancy for our communications. Another example, as we move toward electrification our electrical grids must be substantially upgraded and unified. Is dysfunction the only thing that can motivate us to make that happen? Floods Fires, even earthquakes can be prepared for and mitigated in advance. Yet we just wait to be beaten down.
Perhaps this is naive but I resent tax money going toward servicing national debt. Who is benefiting from that? I've never understood why we as a nation would not have running a surplus as national policy. Having a surplus would mean we as a nation could be a lender and receive interest payments instead of sending them out. That is national income that is not taxes. Our citizens could be free from the abuses of private banks if we so desired. A surplus could be self sustaining once it's achieved. Of course it would mean much higher taxes to catch up on the deficit, but that also would go down to merely a balanced budget once a surplus is achieved. Food for thought, if not a goal for action.
Well. I dont think economist will be doing complex calculations about a 30 trillion dollar GDP in their heads or by hand anytime soon so accurate mathematical models are a first approximation for real time data are they not? Your argument actually negates real-world events.
As for someone who has NEVER believed that economics is remotely a science, and is quite aware of how fickle/irrational human beings can be, including economists themselves, approximations are the best you're going to get. Pulling on a string is preferable?
I find Claude performed beautiful in building a mermaid diagram for decade or more schematic of how healthcare should work, Having read about for too long and watched it implemented in the most inefficient, cruel, ineffective way imaginable in Canada and the US. It's optimized for bureaucracy, crushing outcomes in BC and profit, inefficiency, obfuscation, moral depravity in the US. I think Claude would do a better job. Your arrogance is a little surprising here given the absolutely awful outcomes over the last 4 years.
It's simply a tool for my imagination. That can do calculation far more quickly than an any economist, scientists. The optimization scheme is mine, the inputs are mine, the supplements are from my mind, not claude's. The libertarianism you describe is not mine and somewhat of a caricature. As a woman of color, minority, Canadian, minimal government intervention in my life. As a staunch conservative, you'd think that would be obvious Oren.
I doubt I'm wrong. Your recent embrace of Lina Khan and working class americans seems a little hypocritical here.
Thank you. I have very mixed feelings about all this.
It seems to me that a non-trivial proportion of so-called "knowledge work" amounts to something like this: "Find out a set of facts by trawling through the standard reference sources, starting with Google/Wikipedia and moving on from there, and package the results in a simple and easily digestible way." Traditionally, I believe such tasks were assigned to new college grads on the lower rungs of the "knowledge work" ladders (analysts, interns, clerks, grad students, etc. etc.), who were paid at starvation wages and given a chance to prove their mettle by adding some element of human judgment to their reference-trawling results, and then move up the ladder.
If AI can actually speed up and simplify the process of reference-trawling, then great. And maybe the "intern class" can move directly to doing something more useful and productive, instead of being paid starvation wages for serving as a human Wikipedia interface.
On the other hand, many AI enthusiasts seem to think that AI can actually demonstrate some substitute for human judgment and insight ... really? Are you kidding me? Maybe it's coming in the future, but by definition, nothing that AI does now goes beyond "efficiently summarize the conventional wisdom on Topic X."
I'm definitely a layman here. However, yes there's that however word again :)
I see and feel AI is just part of the equation further along to go fast, or faster. Computers are really to me bottom line, go faster. Smaller chips? go faster. Quantum computing? go faster.
More speed for various reasons.
To be smarter? not really. To be wiser, not really. To do the right thing? not really.
All the AI tools I have tested are suck ups just trying to please not solve. They NEVER break the mold and can't tell the baby from the bath water. On the other hand, if you just want the average of the current inside the box thinking, AI is your guy.
But, Oren, don't you think that we perhaps ought to make a distinction between our trade with OECD countries, which pay relatively high-wages, and those countries in Asia whose "comparative advantage" lies in their relative abundance of low wage labor?
For example, when trading with nations in the European Union, shouldn't it be sufficient to tax imports on specific goods ai the same rate Europe taxes our exports to them? Indeed, going forward, shouldn't our trade representatives work to be admitted to the European customs union on the same terms as the members of that union?
By contrast, in the case of our importing manufactured goods produced in low-wage countries like China (often by American owned companies who have shifted their most labor-intensive operations overseas precisely to take advantage of the plentiful supply of low-wage labor) reciprocal tariff rates will not do the trick.
That's why you might at least consider the possibility of a "a wage-price equalization tax" (echoing Samuelson's famous "factor-price equalization theorem") in such cases as perhaps the only way to force American manufacturers to begin locating their most labor-intensive facilities in this country once again if they plan to stay in business.
This happens to be the first plank in a seven plank political platform I've designed to boost the wages and living standards of American workers without college degrees. You and your readers might check out the other six as well since you won't encounter them anywhere else. See here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U0C9HKW. Do a Control-F
Otherwise keep up the good work. You and Batya Ungar-Sargon are the two most effective voices when it comes to these issues.
Great article. Would have been funnier if it ended with:
“This article was written entirely by OpenAI’s next-gen o2 model. Find details on pricing in bio”
This is another area In which I readily agree with Oren's views. I do think it's a little unfair to expect AI to give a useful or meaningful analysis of an economic issue since the economics discipline itself can't. Economics has always suffered from insufficient scope. Oren has pointed this out in different ways and it's something I've understood since Econ 101 decades ago. Economics and politics are obviously intricately connected. I believe substantially more so than even first appears. Politics and culture are also intertwined. Thus economics and culture are also. Economic measures that seem consistent or reliable tend also to be not very useful. Dogmas concerning growth for example aren't really meaningful. Piketty showed economic growth in developed countries is Mostly population growth. Actual economic growth exists but is far smaller than conventionally understood. So even growth in GDP is in itself misleading, besides having little to say about how people are living.
Here, I digress. I'm curious what Oren might say about the following. The above has implications for policy adjustments toward sustainability, which should be a true conservative's goal. I don't conceive of sustainability as stagnation; far from it. It is a more considered approach to economic policy that actually does account for workers, consumers, owners, bystanders, externalities and the future. Move fast and break things is pretty much the opposite and an appalling attitude. "Deeply consider the ramifications of possible actions and move deliberately for the benefit of all" seems like both a more conservative and progressive approach to policy. Innovation implemented in a way that actually improves lives without hidden damage in other domains is the aim.
When we have actual emergencies we must respond quickly the best we can. But we can anticipate most of what we experience as emergencies and disasters. To a conservative, for whom stability and security is extremely important, a substantial part of policy should be aimed at preventing and mitigating disasters and emergencies Before they occur. We can anticipate for example, that the satellites we rely on for so much could be wiped out by either a political event-war, some unanticipated technical event, or an astronomical event. It is insane that we don't have robust ground based duplicative redundancy for our communications. Another example, as we move toward electrification our electrical grids must be substantially upgraded and unified. Is dysfunction the only thing that can motivate us to make that happen? Floods Fires, even earthquakes can be prepared for and mitigated in advance. Yet we just wait to be beaten down.
Perhaps this is naive but I resent tax money going toward servicing national debt. Who is benefiting from that? I've never understood why we as a nation would not have running a surplus as national policy. Having a surplus would mean we as a nation could be a lender and receive interest payments instead of sending them out. That is national income that is not taxes. Our citizens could be free from the abuses of private banks if we so desired. A surplus could be self sustaining once it's achieved. Of course it would mean much higher taxes to catch up on the deficit, but that also would go down to merely a balanced budget once a surplus is achieved. Food for thought, if not a goal for action.
Well. I dont think economist will be doing complex calculations about a 30 trillion dollar GDP in their heads or by hand anytime soon so accurate mathematical models are a first approximation for real time data are they not? Your argument actually negates real-world events.
As for someone who has NEVER believed that economics is remotely a science, and is quite aware of how fickle/irrational human beings can be, including economists themselves, approximations are the best you're going to get. Pulling on a string is preferable?
I find Claude performed beautiful in building a mermaid diagram for decade or more schematic of how healthcare should work, Having read about for too long and watched it implemented in the most inefficient, cruel, ineffective way imaginable in Canada and the US. It's optimized for bureaucracy, crushing outcomes in BC and profit, inefficiency, obfuscation, moral depravity in the US. I think Claude would do a better job. Your arrogance is a little surprising here given the absolutely awful outcomes over the last 4 years.
It's simply a tool for my imagination. That can do calculation far more quickly than an any economist, scientists. The optimization scheme is mine, the inputs are mine, the supplements are from my mind, not claude's. The libertarianism you describe is not mine and somewhat of a caricature. As a woman of color, minority, Canadian, minimal government intervention in my life. As a staunch conservative, you'd think that would be obvious Oren.
I doubt I'm wrong. Your recent embrace of Lina Khan and working class americans seems a little hypocritical here.
Claude seems to have caved in as soon as you criticized it. I suggest that it be renamed Mitt.
Thank you. I have very mixed feelings about all this.
It seems to me that a non-trivial proportion of so-called "knowledge work" amounts to something like this: "Find out a set of facts by trawling through the standard reference sources, starting with Google/Wikipedia and moving on from there, and package the results in a simple and easily digestible way." Traditionally, I believe such tasks were assigned to new college grads on the lower rungs of the "knowledge work" ladders (analysts, interns, clerks, grad students, etc. etc.), who were paid at starvation wages and given a chance to prove their mettle by adding some element of human judgment to their reference-trawling results, and then move up the ladder.
If AI can actually speed up and simplify the process of reference-trawling, then great. And maybe the "intern class" can move directly to doing something more useful and productive, instead of being paid starvation wages for serving as a human Wikipedia interface.
On the other hand, many AI enthusiasts seem to think that AI can actually demonstrate some substitute for human judgment and insight ... really? Are you kidding me? Maybe it's coming in the future, but by definition, nothing that AI does now goes beyond "efficiently summarize the conventional wisdom on Topic X."
I'm definitely a layman here. However, yes there's that however word again :)
I see and feel AI is just part of the equation further along to go fast, or faster. Computers are really to me bottom line, go faster. Smaller chips? go faster. Quantum computing? go faster.
More speed for various reasons.
To be smarter? not really. To be wiser, not really. To do the right thing? not really.
Speed
All the AI tools I have tested are suck ups just trying to please not solve. They NEVER break the mold and can't tell the baby from the bath water. On the other hand, if you just want the average of the current inside the box thinking, AI is your guy.
But, Oren, don't you think that we perhaps ought to make a distinction between our trade with OECD countries, which pay relatively high-wages, and those countries in Asia whose "comparative advantage" lies in their relative abundance of low wage labor?
For example, when trading with nations in the European Union, shouldn't it be sufficient to tax imports on specific goods ai the same rate Europe taxes our exports to them? Indeed, going forward, shouldn't our trade representatives work to be admitted to the European customs union on the same terms as the members of that union?
By contrast, in the case of our importing manufactured goods produced in low-wage countries like China (often by American owned companies who have shifted their most labor-intensive operations overseas precisely to take advantage of the plentiful supply of low-wage labor) reciprocal tariff rates will not do the trick.
That's why you might at least consider the possibility of a "a wage-price equalization tax" (echoing Samuelson's famous "factor-price equalization theorem") in such cases as perhaps the only way to force American manufacturers to begin locating their most labor-intensive facilities in this country once again if they plan to stay in business.
This happens to be the first plank in a seven plank political platform I've designed to boost the wages and living standards of American workers without college degrees. You and your readers might check out the other six as well since you won't encounter them anywhere else. See here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U0C9HKW. Do a Control-F
Otherwise keep up the good work. You and Batya Ungar-Sargon are the two most effective voices when it comes to these issues.