New post: what a toad can tell us about Europe’s housing shortage.

I asked extended and fast versions of Grok 4, ChatGPT 5.1, Gemini 3, and Opus 4.5 if they'd one-box or two-box. The only two-boxer was Grok 4 fast. Before I draw any deep conclusions from this, can anyone tell me if this replicates for them given their own prompt phrasings?

Interesting experiment found that an AI agent built around the obsolete GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 models beat experienced human venture capital analysts in predicting which early-stage startups would survive based on early screening (at much lower costs as well). sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Superb post on measuring competition using Olley-Pakes by Brian Albrecht at Works in Progress . Goes well beyond the usual "overview" to make a substantive contribution. worksinprogress.co/issue/how-to-s…

(I know I'm a stuck record) An important assumption in AI discourse is that sufficiently capable generalist *models* are the main event. Get the model smart enough, and it more or less does everything. Value creation, competitive advantage, and risk would all concentrate at the

This paper also has a nicer-than-we-did-it description of Benjamin Manning ppr arxiv.org/abs/2508.17407

Jason Hreha Here's the prompt: # Starter Prompt for Claude Code Copy and paste everything below into Claude Code to begin the project: --- ## CRITICAL WORKFLOW REQUIREMENTS **YOU MUST FOLLOW THESE RULES. THEY ARE NON-NEGOTIABLE.** 1. **NEVER claim something works without running a test

Piketty is wrong about the past and the future. My forthcoming book, while not directly about Piketty, shows exactly that. It shows that the era from 1870 to 1910 in America -- when markets were quite open, contestable while people and capital could move around -- was the first

about a year ago I had a fascinating discussion with Mark S. Miller about how you might be able to 1. formalize property rights succinctly relative to a universe simulator 2. encode those property rights on a sufficiently small and secure blockchain 3. require that AI systems

If you're wondering why Schiphol has almost completely shut down after a few inches of snow, the reason is because: - The de-icing machines are extremely far from the main runways for environmental reasons - They only have four of them

THE PERSONAL PANOPTICON. A few months ago, I started running my life out of Claude Code. Not out of intention to do so, it was just the place where everything met. And it just kept working. Empires are won by conquest. What keeps them standing is something much quieter. Before

Last month, the EU commission announced its Auto Omnibus, a big package meant to help the continent's carmakers. The flagship proposal is an end to the 2035 combustion engine ban. But the replacement policy isn't much better: - The mandatory decrease in emissions goes from 100 to

For "open source AI will win" folks - agree the cost of intelligence with fall to MC, but: you'll want your AI to integrate w/ software, access breaking news, published academic work, books. Only closed-source systems likely to get around the transaction costs for those licenses.

The new Dutch government is great, but it wants to make a bad mistake: 40 gigawatts of wind funded with contracts for difference. - Contracts for difference lock in current prices for the next 15 years. - Unlike solar, the price of offshore wind has actually increased in recent

.Agoric s Object Capability security architecture should be uniquely positioned here

These slides from the excellent Luis Garicano 🇪🇺🇺🇦 are a must read for any European policymaker who seriously wants their country to thrive as AI advances. We urgently need to ensure that our economy is ready to take advantage of AI or we will be left behind. In a rapidly changing and

Great piece on how mechanism design can help solve coordination problems, from a Maryland peach farmer selling development rights to save his orchard to New York churches auctioning the empty sky above their spires. noemamag.com/the-architectu…

Interesting fact: avg debt at graduation is higher in Denmark, Norway, UK, Finland, Australia, Netherlands than the US, almost identical in Canada. Some differences in income based repayment but...US university debt is dominated by "low value Masters" + dropouts. 1/2

We've been thinking a lot at Stripe about the Coasean lens on AI: - The obvious near-term effect is reduced transaction costs within companies: shared context, systems of record, aligned incentives etc. - But inter-company transaction costs also reduce sharply: agents are

The Canvas debacle is particularly ironic in light of recent admonitions by UVA admin that student data can only be uploaded to approved university sites like Canvas, not third party sites like OpenAI, which have invested way more heavily in data security