A thread about whether the global – and American – center-left needs a different kind of liberalism. These are thoughts triggered by Trump’s victory in the United States and the swing against mainstream incumbents in many other elections around the world. By liberalism, I mean a political philosophy based on individual rights, constraints on power, equality before the law and some willingness to help the weakest and the discriminated members of society (though this last one is not part of some classic liberal philosophies).

And now on global risks. Trump’s effects will not be confined to within the US borders. He will increase uncertainty around the world. My assessment is that his impact may be even more negative globally than nationally. The world is facing global challenges -- climate change, global pandemics, regulation and redirection of AI, and adaptation to aging. Global problems require supranational institutions, and those are already weak and ailing. Trump will further undercut them.

What about the economy under Trump? I don’t expect great news for workers, and I see big risks from Trump’s overall agenda, both because of his approach to AI and Silicon Valley, and because of his (likely) impact on US institutions. Trump is coming to power at a lucky time. Biden’s signature policies are showing signs of success, but their dividends are not felt yet. They will be realized during Trump’s tenure and he will be quick to take credit.

Trump’ın tekrar seçilmesi nedeniyle endişeli ve üzgün hissediyorum. Maalesef yıllar sürecek çalkantılı ve belirsizliğin hakim olduğu bir dönem bizi bekliyor. Diğer taraftan, bunu bir Trump başarısı olmaktan çok Demokratların kaybettiği bir seçim olarak değerlendirmenin daha doğru olduğunu düşünüyorum. Bu başarısızlığın nedeni Biden’in ilerlemiş yaşına rağmen uzun süre aday olarak kalması değil. Kamala Harris’in yetersizliği de değil (hatta ben onun fazlasıyla yeterli olduğunu düşünüyorum). Asıl neden, Demokratların kampanyasında gizli. Demokrat Parti Amerikan işçi sınıfını bir süredir kaybediyorlardı ve bu seçimde işçileri kazanmak için hiçbir şey yapmadılar.

I feel anxious and saddened by Trump’s election. Years of turmoil and uncertainty await us. I have also come to believe that this is not Trump’s win. It is the Democrats who have lost this election. Not because Biden stayed on as a candidate despite his age. Not because Kamala Harris is not qualified (I believe she’s amply qualified). It is because of Democrats’ campaign. Dems have been losing the American workers and did nothing to regain them in this election.

We are often told that AI will help solve the climate crisis and reduce our carbon footprint. For example, by The World Economic Forum recently: weforum.org/agenda/2024/02… Or the Economist Magazine:
impact.economist.com/perspectives/s…

The Economist magazine provides a perfect illustration of what I find so troubling about the media’s coverage of US presidential elections:
economist.com/leaders/2024/0… This is exactly what Neil Postman was worrying about in Amusing Ourselves to Death. It is a clever, memorable and effective cover, and a catchy editorial, likely to go viral because it will attract attention and amuse people:
amazon.com/Amusing-Oursel…

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Trump v. United States is a true blow to US democratic institutions. In fact, in my opinion this is far worse for US institutions than anything I would have thought possible a decade ago:
supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf… The ruling is not simply bad because Trump, who has a proven track record of attempting to undermine US institutions, may become president again. It is horrible because it completely removes any constitutional constraints on misbehavior by the president.

I am disappointed with mainstream US media, including the New York Times. The headlines are all about Biden’s debate performance. Yes, he’s old. Yes, it would’ve been great to have had a more inspiring younger candidate. Yes, he had a bad night, certainly compared to his State of the Union address. But that is not the main story. The main story is that Trump is a very serious threat to US democracy. Trump was a threat to US institutions when he was elected in 2016, as I argued then: foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/18/we-…

Merkez Bankası’nın faizi arttırması konusunda bazı düşünceler.
Objektif olarak baktığımız zaman 7.50% faiz arttırımı doğru yönde bir karar. Geçen ayki hayal kırıklığı yaratan ve beklentinin çok altında kalan faiz artırımından sonra, bu yeni karar Merkez Bankası’nın belki de gerçekten enflasyona karşı mücadeleye başladığının göstergesi olabilir.

Is centralization of information good? This question is crucial for our evaluation of what large language models (LLMs) will bring, but its relevance is still imperfectly appreciated. A new thought-provoking paper may add to rethinking: arxiv.org/abs/2307.07367 One of the most impressive achievements of ChatGPT is to provide information on technical matters, including computer programming (e.g., ). However, reliance on ChatGPT also displaces other forms of information sharing and generation.arxiv.org/pdf/2302.06590…

There is much discussion of the recent Supreme Court decision striking down affirmative action at elite colleges, both from left and the right. The disappointment from those who want to see greater inclusivity and greater openness to minorities in elite colleges is understandable. And so is the elation of Asian-Americans who were systematically discriminated under the existing system.

Some thoughts on the coup attempt in Russia. What transpired shows first and foremost that Putin’s regime was not as secure as many pundits and Russia experts claimed. E.g.: . Why is that?nytimes.com/2023/06/25/wor… We may want to start by considering how a leader remain in power. Three mechanisms: (1) institutional means (broadly construed to include political norms); (2) persuasion; (3) coalitions. Any leader’s power is a combination of three.

Türkiye ekonomisi konusunda İngilizce attığın mesajların Türkçe bir özetini vereceğim şimdi. Mehmet Şimşek’in atanmasından sonra bir çok yabancı ve Türkiyeli yatırımcıda daha iyimser bir yaklaşım var. Gerçekten de daha rasyonel politikalar Türk ekonomisine katkıda bulunabilir.

There is optimism some quarters about the Turkish economy (e.g., bloomberg.com/news/articles/… or capitaleconomics.com/publications/e…) after President Erdoğan appointed Mehmet Şimşek as the Minister of Finance, and the new minister promised a return to more “rational” policies in his first speech. Indeed, returning to more meaningful macroeconomic policies, including some more room for independence at the central bank and real efforts to fight inflation, could only help the Turkish economy.

Continuing from the previous thread:
10. Ideas as memes. One can go even further and revisit the ideas originally proposed by Richard Dawkins: amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-A… Leaving aside the fact that “memes” were taken over (not so interestingly) by the ad industry, there are some deep issues raised by Dawkins. His discussion anticipates the later important literature spearheaded by people like Boyd and Richerson: amazon.com/Not-Genes-Alon…

Following up on the thread from June 12: so how should we conceptualize the role of ideas? I’m not sure, but here are some speculative directions. 1. Ideas as affecting preferences and choices. The simplest way in which ideas, or social responsibility, would matter is that they convince the majority of the agents. E.g., if not polluting becomes widely accepted, each individual is more likely to reduce pollution.

AI myths roundup. In conclusion, I want to summarize my main arguments and explain the overarching viewpoint. Briefly, I wrote these threads because I believe that there are almost “mystical” claims about AI, and especially generative AI (hence my language of myths). I am convinced that generative AI is a very promising technology — but only if it is used in the correct way. I am also convinced that it is not currently being used in the correct way and the myths that I have argued against are partly responsible for this distorted path.

Bu mesaj dizisinde yapay zekanın niye denetlenemez olduğunu savunan argümanlara karşı görüşler sunuyorum. Birincisi, yapay zekayı ve özellikle büyük modelleri geliştirmeyi yavaşlatmak mümkün, ve bunu değişik teknolojilerle daha eskiden yapıldığı da belirtme biliriz

AI myth 5. You cannot regulate AI. Well, I think I don’t need to work very hard to fight against this one. But it is surprising how often one hears this claim. It has three versions, neither of which holds much water in my opinion. Version 1. AI is so dynamic and ubiquitous that it cannot be regulated. It is claimed that calls for opposing the training of large language models are misguided because they could never be implemented, because if you prevent large companies doing it, others will fill the void.

AI myth 4. The big benefits myth --- that generative AI advances are creating tremendous social value. This again may be true or false. We just don’t have enough evidence to conclude one way or another, and there are various concerns shedding doubt on the strongest claims. First, a lot of the “wisdom” of large language models come from the fact that they have expropriated creative data of others. What would ChatGPT would be without Wikipedia? Without digital books? It is impossible to know, but I would guess not much.