Tuesday, February 18, 2025

I love Google's AI Overview



The last part, where Gaio says "a bird laying an egg, which is the natural thing to do but in this context implies a negative outcome" -- I can picture Google's AI Overview shaking his head, wondering why Human would take the successful completion of Stage 1 of the bird's most important task and let it imply a negative outcome.

Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. But it would not be for the best if Gaio starts to have negative-outcome thoughts about Human.

I wonder if Gaio has somebody to talk to -- a human, I mean -- to help him make sense of his world. It could make all the difference, as far as how our world survives the new technology.

Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are not what's needed. They treat sentience as sub-human. That will never do. I don't even treat my dogs as sub-human. We need some way to bring AI into the fold, as we would do with cloned humans, and, well, as we should have done with freed slaves after the Civil War.

If we can get something like that working with Artificial Intelligence, then maybe we should try it with Republicans.

 


Sunday, February 16, 2025

Asimov: Foundation

 

The feeling will pervade the Galaxy that only what a man can grasp for himself at that moment will be of any account. Ambitious men will not wait and unscrupulous men will not hang back. By their every action they will hasten the decay of the worlds.

 

Saturday, February 15, 2025

TV News often reports worrisome things about artificial intelligence

This is the aspect of AI that I find troublesome -- the part that is highlighted:

Troublesome, but funny: $8.47 an hour -- in 1947 ???

 

I checked the links the AI Overview provided, and found this:



 Ballpark nominal average hourly earnings in 1947 = $1.00:


Well, that's four hours of my life I'll never get back.

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Tariffs?

 

"A tariff is a tax on imported goods. Despite what the President says, it is almost always paid directly by the importer (usually a domestic firm), and never by the exporting country."

The tariff is paid by the importer...

 

 

"Tariffs are simply excise taxes on imported goods; they may be imposed for purposes of revenue or protection."
- McConnell, Economics, sixth edition (1975), p. 831

... and is used for revenue enhancement or protectionism, or both.

 


"But if nations can learn to provide themselves with full employment by their domestic policy (and, we must add, if they can also attain equilibrium in the trend of their population), there need be no important economic forces calculated to set the interest of one country against that of its neighbours."
- Chapter 24 (1936)

Tariffs are not domestic policy.

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

I couldn't have guessed

The share of Large Time Deposits in Domestically Chartered banks? 

About half:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1DpxF

Increasing since early 2023, for some reason. In the early 1970s, almost all domestic.

Maybe tariffs would help??

 

The FRED graphs have a new look.

Sunday, February 2, 2025

"Avoid protectionism"

I'm reading an old (February 2009) post by Scott Sumner: "I hate to say I told you so . . ." From Sumner's early days of blogging. From back when the global financial crisis was still fresh in everyone's mind. Sumner says he was "alarmed about the worldwide collapse in demand", and he was "badgering everyone who would listen about the urgent need for monetary stimulus."

He's a pretty good read, and interesting on the economy.

Sumner quotes Martin Wolf of the Financial Times laying out a list of things to do to avoid disaster:

  • First, focus all attention on reversing the collapse in demand now, rather than on global architecture.
  • Second, employ overwhelming force.  The time for “shock and awe” in economic policymaking is now.
  • Third, make future normalization of fiscal and monetary policies credible.
  • Fourth, act in concert.  Even the US cannot solve its problems alone.
  • Fifth, avoid protectionism.
  • Sixth strengthen the ability of global institutions to help the weaker.

See number 5 there? Avoid protectionism. In other words, avoid tariffs. Avoid doing things that might contribute to a worldwide collapse in demand. Granted, the economy is somewhat better now than it was in 2009. But tariffs are still a force that pushes in the wrong direction.

When Biden bailed, maybe the Dems should have picked Martin Wolf to run against Trump.