The Post-Partisan Emporium

  The AI Bubble and the U.S. Economy:  How Long Do “Hallucinations” Last? By  Servaas Storm This paper argues that (i) we have reached “peak GenAI” in terms of current Large Language Models (LLMs); scaling (building more data centers and using more chips) will not take us further to the goal of “Artificial General Intelligence” (AGI); returns are diminishing rapidly; (ii) the AI-LLM industry and the larger U.S. economy are experiencing a speculative bubble, which is about to burst. The U.S. is undergoing an extraordinary AI-fueled economic boom: The stock market is soaring thanks to exceptionally high valuations of AI-related tech firms, which are fueling economic growth by the hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars they are spending on data centers and other AI infrastructure. The AI investment boom is based on the belief that AI will make workers and firms significantly more productive, which will in turn boost corporate profits to unprecedented levels. But the summer of ...

  The Great Cognitive Advance On a per capita basis, the highly intelligent became ten times more numerous in England between 1000 and 1850. Written by Peter Frost. DNA from human remains is showing us how different populations have evolved over time, not only during prehistory but also well into recorded history. This evolution has affected a wide range of mental and behavioral traits: cognitive ability, time preference, propensity for violence, monotony avoidance, rule following and empathy, among others. Such traits vary among human populations because different cultures have imposed different demands on mind and body. In general, a culture will favour those who can better exploit its possibilities, just as the natural environment does. There has thus been a process of coevolution: we make culture, and it remakes us—by selecting those among us who survive and pass on their genes. This coevolution has followed different trajectories in different times and places. One trajectory b...