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…
Jul 3 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
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.
Jun 29 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
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-…
Aug 27, 2023 • 14 tweets • 2 min read
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.
Jul 31, 2023 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
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…
Jul 7, 2023 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
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.
Jun 26, 2023 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
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.
Jun 16, 2023 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
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.
Jun 16, 2023 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
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.
Jun 14, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
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…
Jun 14, 2023 • 23 tweets • 6 min read
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.
Jun 10, 2023 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
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.
Jun 9, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
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
Jun 9, 2023 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
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.
Jun 8, 2023 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
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.
Jun 7, 2023 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
AI myth 3. Abundance myth. Building on AI myths 1 and 2, a third, and perhaps more pernicious one emerges: automation and human-like performance by AI will bring economic abundance, out of which all or most of society will benefit.
There are many versions of this, going back to IJ Good’s statement that “the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.”
Jun 6, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
AI myth 2. Path to AGI: Advances in generative AI are taking us towards artificial general intelligence. E.g., most recently by several leading AI experts and entrepreneurs: safe.ai/statement-on-a…. Or recent articles showing “sparks of AGI” from GPT-4: arxiv.org/abs/2303.12712.
Once you think that machine-human mind analogies at the root of AI myth 1 are questionable, AI myth 2 becomes less convincing as well. If there is something quite special about the human mind, even large models of generative AI will not get us there.
Jun 5, 2023 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
AI myth 1. Turing hypothesis, about computers and the human mind. Alan Turing made huge breakthroughs in mathematics, including with his analysis of computable functions. His ideas also shaped the way that many people think about the human mind.
A universal Turing machine can compute any computable object. Turing then worked on whether computers (and thus Turing machines) can be intelligent — meaning that they can do the mental steps that humans do.
Jun 5, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Motivated by what I see as misleading articles in coverage in the media, I will post a number of threads in the next several days on “AI myths” — ideas or claims about AI that should be questioned more. A couple of explanations would be useful to put these into context.
First, by “myths” I do not necessarily mean that the statements I will focus on are necessarily incorrect. I claim that they are accepted without sufficient evidence and they need to be questioned more, because they are having an oversized effect on public perceptions.
May 30, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Another statement from leading AI experts and entrepreneurs has come out: safe.ai/statement-on-a…. It states “Mitigating the risk of global extinction from AI should be a global priority along other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war”.
To me, this is disappointing. Of course, we should worry about all risks, and global extinction would be terrible. Yet I believe that this is the wrong thing to focus on, for at least three reasons.