Erik Brynjolfsson Profile picture
Apr 18 10 tweets 8 min read
Polarization, a🧵

30 years ago, the Internet was hailed as creating a globally connected community.

Yet today, we're seeing more attention to how social media are *increasing* polarization.

E.g. @elipariser @JonHaidt and others

#filterbubble
#cyberbalkans
#polarization

1/n
@elipariser @JonHaidt What’s driving the increased online polarization?

Marshall van Alstyne explore how greater connectivity could great filter bubbles and amplify differences between groups in our 1996 and 2005 papers.

2/n
@elipariser @JonHaidt In theory, virtual communities let us connect with far more people and ideas.

In practice, our time, attention and mental processing capacity are still limited, so we must limit who we interact with.

3/n
@elipariser @JonHaidt In virtual communities, we typically filter on dimensions other than geography.

These might include links to existing connections or similarity of tastes, interests, or values.

4/n
@elipariser @JonHaidt As a result, virtual communities can decrease expected integration and increase information distance relative to geographic communities.

5/n
@elipariser @JonHaidt Increasing the variety of topics, the number of social contacts, or information abundance can each have create filter bubbles.

The narrower are population preferences, the worse the balkanizing and stratifying effects.

6/n
@elipariser @JonHaidt Polarization is not inevitable as online communities capture more of our attention.

A taste for diversity (or teaching it) prevents and even reverses filter bubbles.

7/n
@elipariser @JonHaidt @InfoEcon This figure from our paper illustrates one of the basic ideas: geography neighbors are replaced by neighbor in "topic" space who share our interests or values.

9/n
@elipariser @JonHaidt @InfoEcon Increasing connectivity tends to *increase* balkanization (filter bubbles) when preferences are narrow.

But that effect is reversed if people have preferences for diverse information.

10/n

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More from @erikbryn

Jan 7
Here's a preview our our results
Here's the talk outline
Read 7 tweets
Jan 7
Next up at the ASSA meetings, my paper with Lindsey Raymond:

Augmented Intelligence: Effects of AI on Productivity and Work Practices

Link:
eventpilot.us/appinfo.php?pa
#ASSA2022

Please join us!

@LindseyRRaymond @DigEconLab #EconTwitter
@LindseyRRaymond @DigEconLab Abstract
How does technology affect the organization and dissemination of knowledge in production? Production knowledge is often tacit and embodied in individual workers and managers,...

1/n
@LindseyRRaymond @DigEconLab ...and therefore technology that changes the ability to encode and disseminate knowledge, such as artificial intelligence, might affect productivity and organization of production...

2/n
Read 9 tweets
Jan 7
If you're registered for the ASSA meeting, there's a great presentation about AI and Labor starting now:

"Using Language Models to Understand Wage Premia"
Sarah Bana, Stanford Digital Economy Lab

Link:
eventpilot.us/appinfo.php?pa…
#ASSA2022

@SarahHBana @DigEconLab #EconTwitter
@SarahHBana @DigEconLab Using Language Models to Understand Wage Premia

Abstract
Does the text content of a job posting predict the salary offered for the role? There is ample evidence that even within an occupation, a job's skills and tasks affect the job's salary.

1/n
@SarahHBana @DigEconLab Capturing this fine-grained information from postings can provide real-time insights on prices of various job characteristics. Using a new dataset from Greenwich.HR with salary information linked to posting data from Burning Glass Technologies, ...
2/n
Read 6 tweets
Oct 23, 2021
On November 9-10, @StanfordHAI will host a major conference on Policy and AI. It will feature Four Radical Proposals for Better Society.

Here's an interview with @DanHo1 and me discussing the conference:

hai.stanford.edu/news/four-radi…
@StanfordHAI @DanHo1 The Four Radical Proposals we will feature are:

1. Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang: Universal Basic Income to Offset Job Losses Due to Automation

hai.stanford.edu/news/radical-p…
@StanfordHAI @DanHo1 2. Divya Siddarth, Microsoft Associate Political Economist and Social Technologist: Data Cooperatives Could Give Us More Power Over Our Data

hai.stanford.edu/news/radical-p…
Read 7 tweets
Jan 4, 2021
Our new @nberpubs paper is out:

"Advanced Technologies Adoption and Use by U.S. Firms: Evidence from the Annual Business Survey".

We report on the adoption of AI, cloud computing, robotics and the digitization of business information at 850,000 firms.
nber.org/papers/w28290
@nberpubs We find that digitization is quite widespread, as is some use of cloud computing.

In contrast, advanced technology adoption is rare and generally skewed towards larger and older firms.
@nberpubs Adoption patterns are consistent with a hierarchy of increasing technological sophistication, in which most firms that adopt AI or other advanced business technologies also use the other, more widely diffused technologies
Read 5 tweets
Mar 2, 2019
A thread about my new @nberpubs paper with @sethbenzell:

Digital innovation is delivering remarkable progress.

Yet returns to ordinary labor (Median wages) and ordinary capital (interest rates) are both historically low. 1/n
@nberpubs One research literature addresses low median wages and falling labor share.

A completely different literature seeks to explain low interest rates and lack of capital investment.

We explain both of these sets facts with one model.

2/n
@nberpubs Our story:

Digital technologies augment both labor and capital by creating digital versions of them.

But rather than translating directly into growth, K and L both need a third factor: G.

3/n
Read 7 tweets

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