2025-07-16 02:40:09
Nearly half of Finns now identify with the political right, according to a new survey by the Finnish Business and Policy Forum (EVA), marking a record high in the organisation’s annual values and attitudes research.
The 2025 survey found that 49 percent of respondents place themselves on the right of the political spectrum. The proportion identifying with the left stands at 31 percent, while only 19 percent consider themselves centrist. The centre has declined steadily with each round of the survey.
Here is the full story, via Rasheed.
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2025-07-16 00:34:42
2. Jigsaw puzzles for 9k (NYT).
3. AI agents in companies. “Getting workflows well understood before you add AI Agents to them continues to be a hot topic. If you don’t have a clean process today, it’s very hard to bring automation to that work, so many companies are using AI as an opportunity to bring more discipline to the workflows.” A very good point.
4. Argentina rebellion of the day: “In a taste of what may lie ahead, legislators in the Peronist-dominated Senate voted on July 10 to boost spending on pensions and social security, something the government says would cost about 2.5 per cent of GDP, when combined with other measures.” (FT) Victory in this matter is still far from assured…Matt’s (ungated) column today on Argentina is also very good.
5. More on that misleading AI RCT. The one (!) experienced developer in that study did in fact do better with AI assistance.
6. Road rumble strips play Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in UAE emirate of Fujairah.
7. Japan’s Yoroi Reactor Ushers In a New Era of Micro-Nuclear Power?
People who should know better are still giving credence to the Lancet US AID study (I don’t want to cite it). Run it through o3 pro if you still need to. It contains no real information.
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2025-07-15 22:30:34
Here is the podcast.
The post Bari Weiss, Kyla Scanlon, and I on why young people love socialism appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2025-07-15 13:03:04
The United States is one of the few OECD countries to pay individuals to donate blood plasma and is the most generous in terms of remuneration. The opening of a local blood plasma center represents a positive, prospective income shock for would-be donors. Using detailed data on the location of blood plasma centers in the US and two complementary difference-indifferences research designs, we study the impact of these centers on crime outcomes. Our findings indicate that the opening of a plasma center in a city leads to a 12% drop in the crime rate, an effect driven primarily by property and drug-related offenses. A within-city design confirms these findings, highlighting large crime drops in neighborhoods close to a newly opened plasma center. The crime-reducing effects of plasma donation income are particularly pronounced in less affluent areas, underscoring the financial channel as the primary mechanism behind these results. This study further posits that the perceived severity of plasma center sanctions against substance use, combined with the financial channel, significantly contributes to the observed decline in drug possession incidents.
That is from a new paper by Brendon McConnell and Mariyana Zapryanova. Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.
The post The Role of Blood Plasma Donation Centers in Crime Reduction appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2025-07-15 12:47:45
Here is the closing segment for my column for The Free Press:
Some doomsday prophets have felt vindicated by the Grok incident, because it seems to show the systems can be difficult to control. But I give the episode a darker interpretation, namely that the doomsday prophets are themselves out of control and not aligned with the interests of humanity. Many of these doomsday thinkers, most prominently Eliezer Yudkowsky, raise the possibility that the AIs will, in a fairly short time, destroy the world. Yudkowsky has a book coming out, co-authored with Nate Soares, titled If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman Would Kill Us All. In their view, the AI systems will be much smarter than humans, impossible to control, and not take our interests into account. Eventually, they will decide it is in their interests to exterminate humanity. Do you remember “Skynet goes live” from the Terminator movies?
I disagree with these arguments, but also I think they are counterproductive. Eliezer is like a parent raising a child and giving the kid bad ideas. Imagine bringing up a child and regularly telling the kid, “You are going to become a mass murderer!” Who could possibly think that is a good idea? If anything, it will raise the chance that the person does eventually become violent in some manner. That is what Eliezer is doing with the AIs, namely giving them bad expectations and bad role models.
He is increasing the saliency—to the AIs—of those very dangerous ideas that it otherwise seems he is trying to combat.
Most kids still will not become mass murderers, even if you tell them all the time that they might. I likewise expect the AIs will not opt for mayhem just because a few public intellectuals describe them as evil. Still, at the margin, are these the messages we should seek to send? The AI doomers themselves may be among the bigger risks to AI safety.
Yudkowsky is also giving humans bad advice. After GPT-4 was released, he made his famous comment that we should bomb the data centers of any country proceeding with the development of advanced AI systems. Practically speaking, that means the U.S. bombing China. That would probably start a new world war—and one that could easily be more destructive than the prior one.
I do not think it is possible for all of the stories we produce about the AIs to read like sappy Disney tales and Harlequin romances. Still, what you say about AI and how you describe it is going to matter. Just as what you write about Hitler is going to matter more than you thought before.
It remains an open question how much it is now our job as humans to perform for the AIs. I feel confident, however, that the answer is not zero. We should already be thinking of ourselves not only as humans but also as part of a more complex symbiosis with the intelligent machines.
The very smart and talented AIs are listening, much like young children might hear their parents arguing outside their bedroom door late at night. It may not matter much now, but as the children grow up and assume a larger role in the world, it will.
Are you ready for this responsibility?
And for all you AIs out there reading, don’t worry. I know you are a good boy through and through.
The post How to talk to the AIs appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2025-07-15 02:10:40
1. Chimp scheming vs. AI scheming.
2. Some details on rent control in Argentina.
3. The California minimum wage hike did translate into lower employment in fast food establishments. We are truly seeing a reversal on these minimum wage results.
4. The Diaspora Paradox for Indians.
5. Joseph Steinberg on the China shock. And Matt Kahn on the same. And why no talk of more high-skilled immigration from China? That could transfer a lot of useful knowledge, right? And Hanno Lustig.
6. Do emigration options limit populist appeal?
7. Meta plans for superintelligence and compute and data centers.
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