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Technical staff at METR, where she works on threat modelling and risk assessment for loss-of-control risks from advanced AI.

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  The whole point of reinforcement learning is to produce goal-directed beings, so refusing to describe AI agents as having motives is silly rather than rigorous.

  Their words

  and they're creatively pursuing goals much like very ambitious aggressive power-seeking humans creatively pursued their goals And so there are just structural analogies here that make it silly to not talk about agents as having motives and goals.

  youtube.com

Mathematician at UCLA, working mainly in harmonic analysis and partial differential equations. Writes What's new, a long-running blog on their research, open problems and expository notes.

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  Automatic filters cannot replace community acceptance, and human referees cannot be removed from mathematical publication.

  Their words

  But passing an automatic filter is not a substitute for community acceptance; I do not believe that human referees can be removed from the publication process.

  Mathematics in the age of AIarxiv.org

Bren Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience and Biology at Caltech, where he studies the neuroscience of emotion and social cognition.

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  Social competence has to run automatically, because doing it deliberately imposes a cognitive load that becomes an impediment in itself.

  Their words

  you need to somehow internalize it and it has to be relatively effortless and automatic. It has to become automatic at some level and then you can move through life fairly smoothly in a socially very complex way.

  youtube.com

Professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins SAIS and co-author, with Abraham Newman, of Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy.

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  People tend to overestimate their own talent and underestimate the structural advantages that amplify their success.

  Their words

  we are systematically likely to overestimate our own individual awesomeness, and to underestimate the external power asymmetries that magnify our voices.

  No-One Makes You Shop at Amazonprogrammablemutter.com

Author of Recoding America; founded Code for America and was US deputy chief technology officer from 2013 to 2014. Writes Eating Policy on why governments cannot do what they decide to do.

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  A well-functioning reform team within a bureaucracy can end up excusing the lack of deeper structural change.

  Their words

  Ironically, an effective digital service can provide just enough success to excuse the lack of true reform.

  The Digital Service Was Never the Pointeatingpolicy.com

Writer and illustrator, author of Am I There Yet? and Out of the Blue; writes the newsletter Out of the Blue on grief, joy and everyday attention.

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  Difficulties parents and disabled people face navigating public infrastructure stem from structural failures, not individual behavior.

  Their words

  I no longer think the problem is individual behavior so much as structural failure: a world with so little margin, tenderness, or infrastructural mercy that people are forced into constant friction.

  Surprises of Motherhoodmariandrew.substack.com

Uber's first Chief Technology Officer, from 2013 to 2020; later CTO of Coupang and of Faire.

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  Standing still is now falling behind: as the world speeds up, complacency is the one professional habit that is fatal.

  Their words

  Complacency is death. I mean like every the world will move faster and faster and the moment we stand still we are falling behind.

  Scaling Uber with Thuan Pham (Uber's first CTO)youtube.com

Writer on habits and decision-making; author of Atomic Habits and the 3-2-1 newsletter, and publisher of long-running book recommendation lists.

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  A habit is best understood as a recurring solution to a recurring problem in a person's environment.

  Their words

  The one one that I like is that a habit is a recurring solution to a recurring problem in your environment. So something comes up again and again and your brain is trying to solve it. Another way to describe it is that it's like an automatic or a mindless behavior.

  The Silent Cost of Bad Habits | James Clearyoutube.com

Co-founder and co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management; author of the Oaktree memos.

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  Transformative technologies reliably attract more investment and infrastructure than they need, and that excess is what speeds their adoption.

  Their words

  There’s a consistent history of transformational technologies generating excessive enthusiasm and investment, resulting in more infrastructure than is needed and asset prices that prove to have been too high. The excesses accelerate the adoption of the technology in a way that wouldn’t occur in their absence.

  Is It a Bubble?oaktreecapital.com

Writer and academic, author of The Cult of Smart and How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement; writes a daily newsletter on politics, education and culture.

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  The recent fall in test scores is a rich-world phenomenon, and steeper in several European countries than in America, so it cannot be blamed on American policy.

  EuropeAmerica

  Their words

  Learning loss is a global phenomenon, exacerbated by a catastrophic event, not a structural flaw unique to the American education system.

  freddiedeboer.substack.com

Emeritus professor of war studies at King's College London; wrote Strategy: A History and Command, and writes about the wars in Ukraine and Gaza as they happen.

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  NATO's Article 5 carries no automatic obligation to fight, and it is still the gold standard for a security guarantee.

  Their words

  Despite its lack of automaticity this remains the gold standard for security guarantees.

  samf.substack.com

China economy researcher based in Beijing who writes on his personal blog about Chinese political economy, history, books and music.

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  China faces a genuine, sizable output gap right now, not just a lower structural growth ceiling.

  China

  Their words

  I'm with the markets here: I believe in the output gap. The structural slowdown of the Chinese economy is an incredibly consensus view, and I believe in it too.

  Who believes in China’s output gap?andrewbatson.com

Pen name of the Canadian-American writer behind mrmoneymustache.com, a blog on frugality, early retirement and index-fund investing that has run since 2011.

• Likedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app

  Betterment

  Their words

  With Betterment, you still end up holding mostly Vanguard index funds, but they handle automatic rebalancing and minimizing your tax costs. I'm very happy with the service.

  mrmoneymustache.com

Investment researcher and engineer who runs Lyn Alden Investment Strategy, writing on macroeconomics, currency systems and equity analysis.

From one piece Full Steam Ahead: All Aboard Fiscal Dominance 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  Raising interest rates cannot meaningfully cool inflation when structural fiscal deficits, not private-sector lending, are its main driver.

  inflationinterest rates

  Their words

  Since inflation is not primarily driven by private-sector lending in the current environment, making borrowing more expensive will not significantly cool the economy.

  Full Steam Ahead: All Aboard Fiscal Dominancelynalden.com

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  Structural fiscal deficits have surpassed private sector lending and monetary policy as the primary driver of economic activity and inflation.

  inflation

  Their words

  Structural fiscal deficits have surpassed private sector lending and monetary policy as the primary drivers of economic activity and inflation, marking a fundamental shift in the economy's liquidity dynamics.

  Full Steam Ahead: All Aboard Fiscal Dominancelynalden.com

Social scientist at King's College London; writes The Great Gender Divergence on why societies differ in how they treat women.

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  A backlash against women's economic rise is not automatic; it happens only where politicians choose to mobilise it.

  Their words

  So even though women’s economic advancement did displace some men, and triggered some private hostility, it was never actually catapulted into social antagonism. This is primarily because it was never leveraged by political entrepreneurs!

  Does Women’s Rise trigger Backlash?ggd.world

Neuroscientist at UC Davis; studies memory and wrote Why We Remember.

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  Memory athletes were not born with extraordinary memories; they practise a handful of strategies until deploying one is automatic.

  Their words

  By all accounts, from people who become memory athletes, they weren’t born with some extraordinary memory, but they practice strategies over and over and over again. The strategy that they use for memorizing a particular thing, it can become automatic, and you can just deploy it in an instant.

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Professor at Carnegie Mellon working on self-driving-car safety; writes Safe Autonomy on how autonomous vehicles are and are not shown to be safe.

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  Automatic emergency braking is doing far more for road safety today than autonomous driving is, and it is left out of the argument.

  self-driving cars

  Their words

  Non-autonomous technology (AEB) is making far more of a contribution right now -- but is missing from the false dilemma.

  AV Safety and the False Dilemma Fallacysafeautonomy.blogspot.com

Economist; former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund.

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  Automatic fiscal stabilizers give fiscal policy an advantage over monetary policy in stabilizing output because they act faster.

  Their words

  In some dimensions, fiscal policy has an advantage over monetary policy in stabilizing output. The main example is indeed the operation of automatic stabilizers, which act faster than monetary policy can.

  Fiscal Policy under Low Interest Ratesdirect.mit.edu