Andrew Perfors

The AI bubble is so big it's propping up the US economy (for now) Plus how American professors are fighting back against the AI onslaught, a backlash over AI models in Vogue, and more.

Analysts show that capital expenditures on AI were so big over the last 6 months they added more to the GDP than *all consumer spending*. That growth is offsetting pain from the tariffs and slow job growth.

So the AI bubble may be propping up the whole US economy. What happens if and when it pops?

I've been trying to really gently move folks I know into understanding that we will not be going back to Before™. The amount of fundamental damage that has been done to our institutions can't simply be spackled up and painted over—the cracks are in the foundation and must be repaired.

Look, I'm a total idiot when it comes to coding, but I'll stand by my conviction that a mid-level bureaucrat who can keep a complex social safety net program in a massive country humming along has a greater claim to the title of "genius" than a prep school kid who made a marketable iPhone app at 19.

this may literally be the one subject on the planet on which everyone is aligned in this way

I’m not sure you could get these poll numbers with “the sky is blue” or “two plus two equals four”

Photo from the middle of nowhere, Nevada. I know many find it ugly, but I absolutely love this landscape; I find the isolation and the desolation to be soul-enriching. It's been a long time since I've seen it.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
- TS Eliot

#tinyjoys

World Athletics’ mandatory genetic test for women athletes is misguided. I should know – I discovered the relevant gene in 1990 World Athletics says its genetic test for women ensures ‘the integrity of women’s sport’ – but science does not support this overly simplistic idea.

Every TERF is like 'birds and bees, it's easy, folks' and (almost) every scientist actually working on questions of sex is like 'oof guys, what can I tell you, I have been working on this question for 52 years, and frankly, I know less and less every year' theconversation.com/world-athlet...

💕

On reflection, it's a similar feeling that I've felt in other countries with corrupt or poorly regulated systems. You can't let your guard down because it feels like doing so is setting yourself up to be scammed. Over time it rubs your soul down to constantly feel this way.

I think it may also contribute to the general sense of distrust and hostility that pervades more interactions with strangers in the US. Individually people are lovely (often immensely so), but there's often a kind of lurking fear/suspicion/unease there that I don't feel in Australia.

it’s almost like Trump was just lying about a bunch of shit to see what resonated with the rubes and the plan was to do project 2025 stuff all along

if only it had been possible for news orgs to do something other than take his bullshit at face value during the campaign

alas

What?!? I was one of the $15 ones, you're saying it was $5 for most people?

(And, yes, the general culture is one striking thing that you notice as a visitor to the US, that isn't the same elsewhere, at least in magnitude)

Makes sense! Also not insanely hot during the day? (I know Houston and New Orleans aren't cold by any means, but they're not Arizona levels. I can't imagine living day-in and day-out with 100-110F heat for weeks on end as a homeless person, no matter how palatable the nights are.)

It's all so horrible

I'm so tired of hearing that we need to "teach our students how to use AI" when the thing they most need to use it is a critical-thinking skill set that can only be acquired by NOT using it. I'm tired of hearing that it's inevitable. I'm tired.

Yeah, I definitely don't think this is an SF-only thing 😢

Fair enough :) but I lived in SF twenty years ago and I think it's worse now than it was then: many more homeless and utterly wasted people. Maybe I'm less oblivious now but I doubt it.

Either way, though, the heartbreaking thing is that it's there at all, whether it's gotten worse or not. 😢

I'm on the BART right now and just saw a tent city (village? like 20 tents) of homeless people out the window... and, well, there is a certain vibe to all of this and it is strong

I'm visiting San Francisco for a conference. Accidentally getting lost and wandering through the Tenderloin yesterday did not do much to alleviate my impression that there is a tremendous, heartbreaking level of inequality in this country.

So deeply sad 😢

Yep, people are allowed to be wrong sometimes! Even if they're in the majority, and can't perceive their wrongness. Its ok 💕

tl;dr Colette and I are right

I am gobsmacked at the dry toothbrush consensus. There is a good reason to pre-wet! If you don't wet it at all, the first part of toothbrushing is dry and icky feeling. And if you wet it after the toothpaste is on, you make it too sodden or wash some off entirely.

Is there ever such a thing as too much green chile though?

I like this publishing model far, far more than most of the realistic alternatives.

(Having seen how Open Access was corrupted into a thing that increases the costs on researchers and the profits for companies, I'm hugely skeptical of that direction)

A bar chart showing frequencies of answers to the question "Is the mind composed of innate, domain-specialized modules?" with N=197. The most prominent bars are no response (~60), yes (~30) and yo (~30). The rest of the entries are funny, e.g. "I hope so."

Thanks to a rogue Partiful RSVP form at #cogsci2025, I seem to have collected an unexpectedly large dataset (N=197) of whether cognitive scientists think the mind is composed of innate, domain-specialized modules…

I love observing this kind of thing 😊

For normal people, I think there's a lot more fear and uncertainty, but also a lack of knowledge about how AI works and what their game actually is. When govts and institutions are parroting the AI framing, and the models are everywhere and look astounding, it's understandable to buy into it too.

I wonder too. For the decision-makers in charge (govts, tech) I think it's a matter of: (a) being swayed by the money and power, and wanting to be on the top of the eventual heap; (b) sunk cost fallacy and doubling down rather than admit wrongness; and (c) living in a self-reinforcing echo chamber.

I'd rather have a strange woman distribute swords, frankly.

It's crazy reading about how they have wrought the very thing they (say they) feared so much, and they're utterly blind to the fact that they've done so.

(Aside: "gormless" is a great word)

That book is already on my reading list and now I want to read it even more! It's bananas, isn't it?