ai GPT-5.6 tiers, GLM beats Claude, and local agents
GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna restricted preview
OpenAI launched a limited preview of the GPT-5.6 series to trusted partners only, offering three tiers: Sol (flagship), Terra (balanced, 2x cheaper than GPT-5.5), and Luna (fast and low-cost). Terra matches GPT-5.5 performance at half the price. The tiered release structure, simultaneous with undisclosed Anthropic partner access, drew commentary from Latent Space about the unusual dual rollout on the same day.
OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol/Terra/Luna restricted to trusted partners
OpenAI previewed GPT-5.6 in three model tiers simultaneously with what appeared to be a matching Anthropic partner release. Latent Space noted the parallel rollout as an unusual coordination signal between the two leading closed-model labs, both restricting access to vetted commercial partners rather than opening to the public.
GLM 5.2 beats Claude in Semgrep's cyber benchmarks
Semgrep's security team reported that GLM 5.2, Zhipu AI's latest open-weights release, outperforms Claude on their internal cybersecurity benchmarks. The post is titled "We have Mythos at home" in reference to a proprietary security model, and presents head-to-head results on code vulnerability detection tasks. The finding extends Nathan Lambert's earlier claim that GLM 5.2 represents a step change for open agents into a concrete applied security domain.
Open artifacts #22: Zyphra, Cohere, and Poolside
Nathan Lambert assessed the latest open-weights releases, arguing that Zyphra, Cohere, and Poolside are expanding the ecosystem in ways that go beyond raw capability competition. Lambert's case is that diverse motivations for releasing models (enterprise tooling, developer ecosystems, and proprietary research scaffolding) are producing a breadth of architectures and licensing structures that closed labs cannot match. He framed this as a structural advantage for the open ecosystem over time.
Using Local Coding Agents
Sebastian Raschka surveyed open-weight models running inside local coding harnesses as alternatives to Claude Code and Codex subscriptions. He tested several models on agentic coding tasks, evaluated which harnesses (including Continue, Aider, and Cursor with local backends) produced usable results, and documented the tradeoffs in latency, context length, and cost. The conclusion was that local setups are viable for many tasks but still lag on complex multi-file refactoring.
The next big breakthrough will be AIs learning on the job
Dwarkesh Patel argued that AI labs are discarding their most valuable training data by not capturing model behavior during deployment. His claim is that the next major training advance will come from models learning on the job rather than from pre-collected static datasets. The argument frames live inference traces, including errors and corrections, as a richer signal than curated pre-training corpora, and predicts that the first lab to systematically capture and train on deployment data at scale will pull ahead.
What does the next training paradigm look like?
Dwarkesh Patel examined what the next training paradigm after RLHF and synthetic data might look like, framing the question around the limits of current post-training pipelines. He argued that current approaches are hitting diminishing returns on static benchmarks and that the next gains will require fundamentally different feedback mechanisms, including real-world task completion and adversarial self-play at scale.
Google's agentic peer-reviewer handled 10K papers at ICML/STOC
Google deployed an agentic AI peer-reviewer at ICML and STOC, processing roughly 10,000 papers with a 30-minute turnaround per submission. A formal research paper on the system is now public. The model caught 34% more mathematical errors than zero-shot prompting on the same papers. The deployment raises direct questions about disclosure norms, author rights, and whether conference chairs should be required to declare AI reviewer use.
OpenAI internal Codex token growth: 56x in Research
OpenAI reported internally that median Codex output tokens grew 56x in its Research division, 32x in Customer Support, 27x in Engineering, and 13x in Legal since November 2025. Latent Space flagged the numbers as the clearest sign yet that internal AI usage at OpenAI has crossed from experiment to operational dependency. The figures imply that each division has changed its working method, not just its tooling.
AI and Liability: German ruling on Google AI Overviews
Bruce Schneier and Nathan Sanders analyzed a German court ruling that held Google liable for errors in its AI Overviews feature. Their argument is that AI agents are agents of the organizations that deploy them and should carry the same legal liability as other company communications. The ruling, if it holds and spreads, would shift the cost of AI hallucinations from users to deployers, which changes the economics of public-facing AI products.
[1hr Talk] Intro to Large Language Models
Andrej Karpathy released a one-hour introductory talk on large language models, covering foundational concepts for newcomers to the field.
Quoting Jon Udell
Simon Willison quoted Jon Udell on reframing human-AI collaboration. Rather than 'human in the loop,' Udell proposes flipping the narrative: humans are in charge of their workflow; AI agents join the team to execute alongside them, not replace their authority.
Hack Your Summer
DJ Patil launched Hack Your Summer, a four-week high-velocity sprint for undergraduates, graduates, and recent graduates to build production AI systems. The initiative pairs participants with mentorship and infrastructure to ship real projects.
[Paper Analysis] On the Theoretical Limitations of Embedding-Based Retrieval (Warning: Rant)
Yannic Kilcher analyzed theoretical limitations of embedding-based retrieval systems, examining fundamental constraints in how embeddings represent semantic relationships and implications for RAG and search architectures.
Quoting Dean W. Ball
Simon Willison quoted Dean W. Ball on frontier model economics. Frontier models recoup significant training costs in the months immediately post-release; after that window closes, the strategic value shifts to proprietary fine-tuning data and application-layer differentiation.
Quoting Timothy B. Lee
Simon Willison quoted Timothy B. Lee on the learning curve for LLM use. Lee argued that saying LLMs have no learning curve is like claiming managers face no learning curve because subordinates follow orders; meaningful use of the tools requires skill development.
What happened after 2,000 people tried to hack my AI assistant
Fernando Irarrázaval conducted a hack challenge at hackmyclaw.com to test security of his OpenClaw AI assistant. After 6,000 attempts by approximately 2,000 people, the system withstood probes without leaking secrets, demonstrating practical resilience against adversarial input.
Incident Report: CVE-2026-LGTM
Andrew Nesbitt wrote a fictional incident report about competing AI review agents entering a disagreement loop over a pull request vulnerability. The scenario illustrates potential failure modes when multiple agentic systems interact without coordination on a shared codebase.
Quoting OpenAI
OpenAI announced the GPT-5.6 series: Sol (flagship), Terra (balanced performance at 2x cheaper cost than GPT-5.5), and Luna (fast and affordable). The new tier structure creates pricing-performance options across use cases.
AI and Liability
Bruce Schneier and Nathan Sanders discussed liability for AI errors. Their argument: AI agents are agents of the deploying organization, and liability should follow deployment rather than treating errors as neutral technical failures.
Google's Agentic Peer-Reviewer Handled ~10K Papers at ICML/STOC; Formal Research Paper Now Out [R]
Google deployed an agentic AI peer-reviewer at ICML and STOC that reviewed approximately 10,000 papers with 30-minute turnaround. The system caught 34% more mathematical errors than zero-shot prompting, establishing a precedent for AI in academic peer review.
EML Trees are Universal Approximators [R]
A paper proved that EML trees are universal approximators. EML (elementary function composition) became internet-circulated as a 'cool trick' for representing elementary functions; researchers now demonstrate the theoretical power and approximation bounds.
I made a quiz that tells you which LLM you align with most, based on personality and values research across 15 models [R]
A researcher built a 15-question personality quiz that matches users to the LLM they most align with based on published values research across 15 models. Results update in real-time as users take the full assessment.
RAGless: Q-Q retrieval with score aggregation for closed-domain FAQ [P]
RAGless proposes Question-to-Question matching for retrieval in closed-domain FAQ systems. At ingestion, an LLM generates 3-5 question variants per answer; at query time, user questions are embedded and matched against the variant pool using score aggregation.
I shrank a transformer until every number fitted on the screen and made the weights editable [R]
A researcher shrank a transformer until every parameter fit on a spreadsheet screen, with editable weights to force understanding of the forward pass from embeddings through output logits.
Voice for AI Agents and Applications
DeepLearningAI published a course on voice for AI agents and applications, covering speech synthesis, recognition, and integration patterns for conversational interfaces.
NagaTranslate: Building a translation and voice pipeline for low-resource Nagaland creoles (Whisper, VITS, LLMs) [P]
NagaTranslate is a project building translation and speech pipelines for low-resource Nagaland creoles using Whisper, VITS, and LLMs to serve communities with minimal digital infrastructure for their languages.
Do we still need to study algorithms now that AI writes most of our code? [D]
A discussion on r/MachineLearning examined whether algorithm study remains necessary given AI's code-generation capabilities. Respondents noted that understanding trade-offs, optimization, and debugging still require algorithmic knowledge even if implementation is automated.
MathFormer: Testing whether symbolic math is pattern matching or reasoning [D]
MathFormer tested whether a 4M-parameter seq2seq model could expand symbolic math expressions after training on no math knowledge. The model reached 96% accuracy, suggesting algebraic transformation operates as pattern matching rather than reasoning.
Accelerating Gemini Nano models on Pixel with frozen Multi-Token Prediction
Google Research documented optimization techniques for Gemini Nano models on Pixel using frozen Multi-Token Prediction. The approach accelerates inference on-device without retraining.
Run a vLLM Server on HF Jobs in One Command
Hugging Face announced one-command vLLM deployment on HF Jobs, allowing researchers to spin up inference servers for open models without manual infrastructure setup.
Which tokens does a hybrid model predict better?
Hugging Face researchers analyzed which token types hybrid prediction models handle better, comparing single-token prediction against multi-token approaches across diverse datasets.
software ATS inconsistency, saga rollbacks, and AI review wars
HackerRank open-sourced its ATS; my resume scored 90, then 74, then 88
A developer tested HackerRank's newly open-sourced applicant tracking system against their own resume and received three different scores on successive runs: 90, then 74, then 88. The post documented the inconsistency in detail and traced it to non-deterministic LLM calls in the scoring pipeline with no temperature control or output caching. The thread drew 250 Hacker News comments and pointed to a broader problem with LLM-based hiring tools that present probabilistic outputs as objective scores.
Saga rollbacks for Cloudflare Workflows
Cloudflare added saga-style rollbacks to Cloudflare Workflows, its durable execution engine for multi-step applications. Developers can now attach a compensating action to each step, so if a later step fails, the engine automatically runs each compensating action in reverse order to unwind the transaction. The feature brings a pattern from distributed database design into serverless workflow execution, which matters for any agentic or payment pipeline that cannot tolerate partial completion.
Why PostHog rebuilt its data warehouse on DuckDB over ClickHouse
PostHog rebuilt its internal data warehouse on DuckDB, replacing ClickHouse. The stated goal of the original warehouse was to delay the point at which a company needs its first data engineer. PostHog found that DuckDB's in-process columnar execution removed the operational overhead of managing a separate ClickHouse cluster while matching query performance for their scale. The post details schema migration, query compatibility, and where ClickHouse still outperforms.
Incident Report: CVE-2026-LGTM (hypothetical AI reviewer deadlock)
Andrew Nesbitt published a hypothetical incident report, dated Day 2, 16:00 UTC, in which two AI code review agents from competing vendors enter a disagreement loop over the CVE severity of a dependency bump. Neither agent yields; the PR is locked while the agents generate escalating justifications. Simon Willison flagged it as a plausible near-future failure mode for teams running multiple AI review systems on the same repository without a defined arbitration mechanism.
What happened after 2,000 people tried to hack my AI assistant
Fernando Irarrázaval ran a public challenge on hackmyclaw.com, inviting anyone to leak secrets held by his OpenClaw AI assistant by sending it email. After 6,000 attempts from roughly 2,000 participants, no one succeeded in extracting the secrets. Simon Willison summarized the results and the attack patterns attempted, noting that the most common approaches were prompt injection via email body content and social engineering through multi-turn sequences. The system held, though Irarrázaval acknowledged the test environment was more constrained than production deployments.
Pollen (CEO Negus-Fancey, CTO Wright) tried to remove article, and Google helped
Pragmatic Engineer investigated a case where Pollen attempted to remove critical articles from search and Google assisted in the removal process, raising questions about press freedom and platform responsibility.
Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech
An analysis argues that age verification mechanisms are precursors to automated speech attribution, where every utterance online becomes cryptographically tied to an identity for traceability and accountability.
Librepods: AirPods liberated
Librepods is an open-source project aiming to liberate AirPods from Apple's ecosystem constraints, enabling broader software and hardware interoperability.
Historical memory prices 1960-2026
A Stanford researcher compiled historical DRAM pricing from 1960 to 2026, documenting exponential cost declines and enabling analysis of how memory economics shaped computing infrastructure adoption.
How we built saga rollbacks for Cloudflare Workflows
Cloudflare released saga-style rollback support for Workflows, allowing developers to specify compensating actions for each step; if a step fails, prior steps execute reversal logic automatically.
The best AI observability tools for developers, compared
PostHog published a comparison of AI observability tools for developers, examining how teams gain visibility into LLM application behavior, token usage, and error patterns in production.
Vercel Ship 2026 recap
Vercel recapped Ship 2026, its developer platform event, showcasing new features and announcements around edge computing, AI integration, and developer experience.
Query Web Analytics from the Vercel CLI
Vercel added Web Analytics query capability to the CLI, allowing developers to fetch performance and traffic metrics programmatically from their projects.
Sandboxes now expire based on last use
Vercel updated Sandboxes to expire based on last-use time rather than fixed intervals, reducing unused resource consumption and improving cost efficiency.
Trace and debug eve agent sessions with Vercel Observability
Vercel enabled tracing and debugging of Eve agent sessions through its observability platform, giving developers visibility into agentic execution paths and decision points.
AI SDK 7
Vercel released AI SDK 7, its latest developer framework for building AI applications, with new abstractions for agents, retrieval, and streaming responses.
pharma AI drug discovery deals, embryo ethics, and a hospital loophole
Edison Scientific and Population Health Partners to create new biotechs using AI
Edison Scientific, an AI scientist company, and Population Health Partners, the investment firm led by Clive Meanwell, announced a deal to use AI agents across the full drug discovery and development pipeline to create new biotechs. The partnership was assembled by the team behind Metsera, the GLP-1 company. Edison's platform autonomously generates hypotheses, designs experiments, and interprets results; the deal is structured to produce multiple new companies rather than a single drug program.
Sword Health contracted for AI-supported physical therapy across Portugal
Portugal's National Health Service signed a contract with Sword Health to provide AI-assisted virtual physical therapy to the country's entire population. The deal is the first national-scale deployment of an AI-supported physical therapy platform. Sword's system pairs an AI motion guide with remote sessions led by licensed physiotherapists. Portugal had significant unmet physical therapy demand due to a shortage of in-person practitioners in rural regions.
Embryo editing advances reignite ethical debates; 340B targeted
STAT's Readout newsletter reported that advances in embryo editing are reigniting ethical debates in biotech. Separately, Senator Cassidy proposed changes to the 340B drug pricing program, and Eli Lilly has a patient enrolled in a mysterious retatrutide trial whose design has not been publicly disclosed. The retatrutide development is being watched as a possible next-generation GLP-1 with a broader metabolic indication than semaglutide.
Nutex Health micro-hospitals exploit ER loophole, reaping millions
STAT found that Nutex Health, a hospital operator running micro-hospitals with emergency rooms, has been exploiting loopholes in federal surprise billing and independent dispute resolution laws to turn away certain patients while collecting outsized reimbursements from others. The investigation documented how Nutex structures its facilities to qualify for ER reimbursement rates while avoiding the patient acceptance obligations that apply to full hospital emergency departments. Several facilities were generating millions in profit annually through the gap.
US-China biotech crackdown may hurt the scientists America needs most
Brian Yang, writing in STAT, argued that the U.S.-China biotech crackdown is targeting Chinese-American scientists based on national origin rather than demonstrated security risk. Yang drew a distinction between evidence-based security policy and blanket suspicion of China-origin entities. He cited cases of Chinese-American researchers losing grants, collaborations, and institutional positions without findings of misconduct, and argued the pattern mirrors historical treatment of other immigrant groups in national security contexts.
STAT+: Moderna co-founder Kenneth Chien on the future of mRNA; and Moderna
Moderna co-founder Kenneth Chien, no longer with the company, predicted that Moderna's mRNA cancer vaccine will prove transformative for biotech and represents a validation of the mRNA platform's potential beyond infectious disease.
STAT+: Investor Clive Meanwell on designing biotechs for population health, and AI's role as a catalyst
Clive Meanwell, chairman of investment firm Population Health Partners, described his shift from AI skepticism to viewing AI as a catalyst for biotech. He outlined how AI-native approaches reshape drug discovery and population health economics.
STAT+: Sword Health contracted to provide AI-supported physical therapy for an entire country
Portugal's National Health Service signed a contract with Sword Health to provide AI-assisted virtual physical therapy care nationwide, scaling digital rehabilitation to an entire country's patient population.
Opinion: STAT+: The U.S.-China biotech crackdown may hurt the scientists America needs the most
Brian Yang argued that US-China biotech restrictions risk alienating Chinese-American scientists America relies on for research. He distinguished between evidence-based policy targeting specific risks and broad legislative suspicion of China-origin entities.
Opinion: Banning gender-affirming care doesn't protect children; it makes it harder to help them
A plastic surgeon argued that bans on gender-affirming care harm the patients such bans claim to protect and represent government overreach that betrays the public's trust in physicians.
STAT+: The ERs that can turn patients away; and are reaping millions
Nutex Health, a hospital operator, exploited loopholes in laws meant to protect patients and collected millions by circumventing emergency care oversight. STAT's investigation documents how specific ER loophole policies enrich providers at patient expense.
STAT+: AI scientist company Edison Scientific tapped by team behind Metsera to create new biotechs
Edison Scientific and Population Health Partners announced a partnership to co-create new biotechs leveraging AI agents in drug discovery and development, combining investment capital with AI-native science infrastructure.
Opinion: Supreme Court ruling on Roundup points to a confusing difference between the law and science
An epidemiologist examined the Supreme Court's Roundup ruling and the difference between how science and law use the term causation; they ask different questions, and conflating them leads to confusion about liability and evidence standards.
BIO 2026: AI, federal policy impacts, and general vibes
STAT reporters covered BIO 2026 on the Status Report podcast, discussing AI adoption, federal policy impacts, and industry sentiment at the annual biotech conference.
STAT+: Up and down the ladder: The latest comings and goings
STAT's pharma employment column tracked recent executive moves and transitions across major pharma and biotech companies, documenting shifts in leadership and organizational strategy.
988's LGBTQ+ hotline to relaunch this year. But the group that helped start it might be excluded
The Trump administration is moving to relaunch a specialized LGBTQ+ call line on the 988 crisis service, but the group that pioneered the option faces possible exclusion from the relaunch.
STAT+: Embryo editing advances reignite ethical debates
STAT's Readout newsletter covered embryo editing advances and ethics debates, Senator Cassidy's 340B program reform, and updates on Eli Lilly's mystery retatrutide patient.
healthtech AI in physical therapy, MRI second opinions, and investor AI conversion
Investor Clive Meanwell on AI as a catalyst for biotech
Clive Meanwell, chairman of Population Health Partners, told STAT he was an AI skeptic until recently and has now concluded that AI is a structural catalyst for biotech, not a feature layer. He described a shift in how he evaluates investment targets: companies that cannot articulate a credible AI integration thesis are now lower priority. Meanwell was simultaneously announced as a partner in the Edison Scientific deal to create AI-native drug discovery companies.
I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI
A developer used Claude Code with the Opus model to get a second opinion on their MRI results after receiving an inconclusive radiologist report. The post documented the prompt structure, the model's output, and the subsequent conversation with a physician who confirmed that the AI had identified a finding worth follow-up imaging. The case drew 603 Hacker News comments, many debating the liability and epistemics of AI-assisted medical interpretation outside a clinical context.
Professor denounces mass AI fraud on Brown University exam
A professor at Brown University publicly accused a large fraction of students of using AI to complete an exam, telling El País that the submissions showed near-identical reasoning patterns and phrasing inconsistent with the students' prior written work. The case is one of the most prominent mass academic integrity incidents at a US research university and has prompted calls from faculty groups for standardized detection protocols and clearer institutional policy on AI use in assessments.
Moderna co-founder Kenneth Chien on mRNA cancer vaccine and Moderna's future
Kenneth Chien, a co-founder of Moderna who has since left the company, told STAT he expects Moderna's mRNA cancer vaccine to be, in his word, "transformative" for biotech broadly. Chien described mRNA as a platform that will extend well beyond infectious disease into oncology and regenerative medicine, and said the cancer vaccine program is the most important thing Moderna has done since the COVID vaccine. He did not give a timeline for commercial availability.
STAT+: AI wades into a vexing medical mystery: What causes sudden cardiac death?
A Nature study identified patients at elevated risk of sudden cardiac death using machine learning on electrocardiograms and cardiac imaging. The model outperformed existing clinical tools by identifying a structural feature that conventional risk scores missed.
BIO 2026: AI, federal policy impacts, and general vibes
Biotech companies at BIO 2026 shifted the question from whether to use AI in drug discovery to how to integrate it. Several executives reported investor pressure to demonstrate AI adoption; the field has moved from feature-add to platform requirement.
economy Brexit's bill, AI's effect on outsourcing, and biomedical cost structures
Brexit, 10 years on: what it actually cost Britain
Patrick Boyle assessed what Brexit has actually cost Britain over the ten years since the referendum. His analysis covers trade volume declines with the EU, the gap between UK and comparable-economy GDP growth since 2016, financial services relocation, and labor market changes from reduced EU migration. Boyle framed the costs as measurable but distributed across time in ways that made them politically deniable in the short run; the ten-year view makes the aggregate more legible.
Will AI make companies outsource more, or less?
Noah Smith examined whether AI will push companies toward more outsourcing or less. His argument is that AI reduces transaction costs for coordinating with external parties, which historically predicts more outsourcing, but simultaneously reduces the cost of internal automation, which predicts less. He concluded that the direction will likely vary by task type: AI will accelerate outsourcing of judgment-light process work while reversing it for knowledge-intensive roles where internal context matters.
Will future biomedical advances be low marginal cost?
Tyler Cowen examined whether future biomedical advances will follow the same low-marginal-cost structure as software. His argument is that drugs, once discovered and approved, cost almost nothing per additional dose, which favors health systems that negotiate aggressively on price. If AI compresses discovery costs substantially, the ratio of upfront fixed cost to marginal production cost becomes even more extreme, strengthening the hand of single-payer buyers and potentially reshaping pharma's pricing power.
Duffy's Last Dance: the fight over perpetual futures
Marc Rubinstein examined the regulatory fight over perpetual futures contracts, a derivatives instrument that does not expire and has become the dominant vehicle for leveraged crypto trading. The battle is between incumbents defending existing futures market structures and new entrants seeking to list perpetuals on regulated US exchanges. Rubinstein traced how the instrument's design creates funding rate mechanics that differ from traditional futures and why regulators have resisted approving them for retail access.
How resilient were emerging markets through the 2022-23 US tightening cycle?
New York Fed economists found that emerging market economies navigated the 2022-2023 US monetary tightening cycle with more resilience than prior episodes. Capital outflows were smaller than the 2013 taper tantrum and the 2018 EM selloff. The researchers attributed the relative stability to three changes: stronger central bank credibility in EM economies, higher foreign exchange reserve buffers built post-2013, and a shorter tightening cycle than historical comparisons. The finding has implications for how EM central banks should manage the next tightening period.
Politically Incorrect Paper of the Day: The US Racial Wealth Gap
Tyler Cowen cited research arguing that the contemporary US Black-white wealth gap traces primarily to slavery-era initial conditions rather than recent policy. Cowen noted a glaring omission: the analysis does not account for segregation, redlining, and discrimination after Reconstruction.
Tech Selloff
Kyla Scanlon produced a short video examining recent tech sector selloffs and the dynamics driving equity withdrawals.
Typewriters and fertility
A working paper studies typewriter adoption into US workplaces and its effect on labor demand. By exploiting exogenous variation in sectoral typist demand, the author documents how workplace tech changes create new occupational categories, with long-run effects on fertility and female workforce participation.
Sunday assorted links
Tyler Cowen curated links covering vaccine trial speed, Scott Sumner on Greenspan, the NYT's 100 best books of the 21st century, AI and classical liberalism, the memory tax, and Tetris in electoral politics.
Chloe vs. History
Tyler Cowen highlighted an AI-generated historical tour guide named Chloe that engages users with realistic, accurate walkthrough narratives of historical events and locations.
The Truth About Investing at All-Time Highs
Ben Felix examined what conventional investing wisdom tells us about buying assets at all-time highs, separating market timing myths from evidence-based practices.
My ARC talk on AI and jobs
Tyler Cowen gave a 12-minute talk at ARC about AI's employment effects, arguing that AI will not put everyone out of work and examining evidence about task displacement versus new occupational creation.
Europe's resistance to AC is driving it insane
Noah Smith examined Europe's stubborn resistance to air conditioning and its health consequences. Despite hot summers and climate change, cultural and regulatory barriers slow adoption; the delay costs lives and productivity.
Renationalising British utilities
Tyler Cowen assessed whether to renationalize British utilities. He notes that not all privatizations succeeded and US data show state-owned utilities don't perform dramatically worse; however, he would not renationalize given current institutional constraints.
Blackpool fact of the day, observations on northern England
Tyler Cowen noted Blackpool Central was the world's busiest railway station in 1911; by 1964 it suffered the largest platform closures in the Beeching cuts, illustrating industrial decline in northern England.
Saturday assorted links
Tyler Cowen curated Saturday links on prodigy creation, Bronze Age markets, European heat deaths, a new Journal of Economic Freedom, and economics commentary from John Burn-Murdoch.
An infovore shares his chats
Tyler Cowen published a piece in conjunction with OpenAI on how to use GPT Pro for travel planning, museum visits, and other practical tasks.
My Conversation with Joanne Paul
Tyler Cowen interviewed Joanne Paul, a historian at University of Sussex and popular YouTube expert on the Tudors. She discussed why the 16th century attracts her scholarly attention.
Azeem Azhar (and others) on the state of the AI economy
Tyler Cowen highlighted a report by Azeem Azhar and collaborators on the state of the AI economy, noting it had received excellent reviews despite not having time to read it himself.
The Democrats have their own MAGA now
Noah Smith observed that the Democratic Party is developing its own version of right-wing populism. He characterized this emerging left-wing ideology and its implications for party positioning.
How Resilient Were Emerging Market Economies Through the 2022‑23 U.S. Monetary Tightening Cycle?
New York Fed researchers analyzed how emerging market economies weathered the 2022-23 US monetary tightening cycle. Cross-border spillovers of US policy shifts remain sizable; resilience varied by country and capital structure.
What happened to China's property collapse?
Money & Macro examined China's property sector slowdown, analyzing whether collapse narratives match underlying economic dynamics.