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Yiqin Fu

@yiqinfu

27 Oct

One of China's most prominent technocrats Huang Qifan gave a speech last month on the "five changes in China's development strategy between now and 2035."

The end goal is for China's GDP to exceed $30 trillion by 2035, adding 1.4b to the world's high-income population of 1.1b.

Some highlights (from my vantage point):

ECONOMY

1.1 Self-sufficiency in energy, agriculture, and manufacturing

1.2 Greater openness to foreign investment; greater involvement in international orgs

1.3 Import/export's share of GDP down to 25%; disposable income💹 to 50%

ENERGY

2.1 Cleaner development: CO2/GDP reaching EU/US levels by 2050

2.2 Global leadership in clean energy: #1 in manufacturing, consumption, and "transcontinental supergrids"

Huang makes this analogy:

China:clean energy = UK (Watt):steam engine = US (Ford):combustion engine

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Yiqin Fu

@yiqinfu

12 Oct

Spotify publishes the coolest research!

Facts from this paper: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWS…

1) Everyone listens to music released in their adolescent years.

Also from nytimes.com/2018/02/10/opi… we know that the peak influence age for women is 13 and men 14.

2) Individuals across different states have the same level of diversity in music taste, but state-level diversity is quite different -- the measure doesn't correlate with the entropy of states' racial composition but does correlate strongly with the share of Hispanic population.

3) Jazz is a Pacific Northwest thing?

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Yiqin Fu

@yiqinfu

20 Sep 20

Trying to see if we can audit the Twitter cropping algorithm more rigorously... Here's the same person (Obama) with light and dark skin tones.

Photos taken from this paper: academic.oup.com/poq/article/80…

Pair #2, same background, same pose

Photos from: uky.edu/AS/PoliSci/Pef…

Pair #3, same background, same pose

source same as above

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Yiqin Fu

@yiqinfu

8 Sep 20

The Chinese magazine Renwu just published a long feature on “algorithms and food delivery drivers”.

Apparently the delivery platforms ask drivers to follow ***walking*** rather than driving directions, so drivers have no choice but to go against the traffic, run red lights, etc.

Drivers say it’s impossible to deliver “on time” if they follow traffic rules.

And as the algorithm gets trained on past delivery times, there’s a race to the bottom — the platform makes ever more unrealistic estimates, and drivers take on greater risk in order to stay in.

Rainy days are the worst because people place more orders.

Once, 30+ drivers in an area fulfilled 1000+ orders in less than three hours.

Drivers and regional hubs that fail to deliver on time or quit on rainy days get punished by the system.

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Yiqin Fu

@yiqinfu

28 Aug 20

Exhibit A of social media as outrage merchants:

I share a lot of academic research on Chinese social media and frequently find that in the comment section, offensive one-liners get ranked higher than sincere discussions even though the former has fewer likes (see screenshot).

Weibo’s comment section has a Reddit-like nested structure, and the ranking algorithm takes into account **all** likes garnered by the parent comment and its children.

You can imagine how this kind of algorithm amplifies resentment and distorts our perception of public opinion.

I share a lot of gender-related research online.

Usually the top-ranked comment would be something offensive and unhelpful: “All women are...!”

This comment would then attract lots of counter-punches, making it even more attractive from the ranking algorithm’s perspective.

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Yiqin Fu

@yiqinfu

27 Aug 20

Interesting discussions going around the Chinese Internet re the power WeChat wields as a super app that rolls your work, social, financial life into one.

Apparently when you get suspended, it becomes logistically difficult to pay back the loans you took out on the platform.

Toll payments in China are all made online these days.

One blogger said he missed several toll payments because his old WeChat account got suspended and the toll payment system wouldn’t accept a new WeChat account.

He worried that his financial creditworthiness may take a hit.

Per the discussions, once your account gets suspended, you can still log in, but you can’t send any messages.

In other words, you have to manually add your contacts when you create a new account.

There’s an appeals process, but I haven’t come across any success stories.

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