All of Maxwell Tabarrok's Comments + Replies

Why Governments Can't be Trusted to Protect the Long-run Future

Well if it affects one plot of land that is currently the property of just 1 person it can still be an externality because lots of different people will own this land in the future.

1Donald Hobson4moIt could be an externality, if the land was randomly reassigned a new owner every year or something. But if the land is sold, that is taken into account. It isn't an externality. Capitalism has priced this effect in.

Something Is Getting Harder To Find But It's Not Ideas

Maxwell Tabarrok6mo1

No you're right, I had a section in there evaluating the different possible reasons for slow down but it got too long so that will be coming in future posts. Sorry for the hyperbolic title!

Something Is Getting Harder To Find But It's Not Ideas

Maxwell Tabarrok6mo2

I basically agree with everything you've said here.

On the subdomains point, you can have decreasing returns within each subdomain but constant returns overall if you keep finding new subdomains. I think this is an accurate model of progress. It captures ideas like paradigm shifts and also integrates the intuitions for low-hanging fruit and burden of knowledge in a way which still allows rapid progress. My favorite example is the Copernican revolution. There were huge obstacles from burden of knowledge and low-hanging fruit in Ptolemaic astronomy. It ... (read more)

1jasoncrawford6moAbsolutely true that new subdomains open up new areas of low-hanging fruit. It is the “stacked S-curve” model. Not immediately clear whether what this means for β>0. I think this model may be addressed in Bloom et al, or maybe in an earlier paper by Jones. I vaguely recall that it doesn't make a difference whether you analyze things in terms of the subdomains or the economy at large, but I don't have the exact reference at hand.

Eli Dourado AMA

Maxwell Tabarrok1y1

How would you restructure the production of education and research? Universities are clearly pretty inefficient. How to improve them? Are there any politically feasible plans? Will AIs just obviate internal reform by creating an entirely new form of education and research?

1elidourado1yThe biggest problem that I see in college education is that most people don't actually want to learn very much. College social life is undeniably fun, and although most people find a few classes they enjoy, they're there for the experience + the credential. I don't know how to fix it because I think there is demand for the current system, but there should be at least one college with unlimited enrollment that is rigorous enough that it weeds out the people who aren't giving it their best effort. Maybe it should be self-paced, with a massive total learning requirement so that it takes the best students four years and others longer. The degree would be worth more than other degrees in the end because it is so rigorous. I think recorded lectures would be a part of it, but you'd probably still need/want human tutors and performance coaches. Motivation is often the scarce factor; if it wasn't you could learn just about anything with a library card. AI can help with both content and motivational scripts but I don't think it's a radical difference from what we can do now with non-AI methods. If Rigorous U took off this would separate researchers further from undergraduate students. Research labs could be separate institutions even. I'd like to see researchers spend more time exposed to industry. At least once in their career they should take a basic science breakthrough and try to take it all the way to commercialization. Yes, there are gains from specialization, but there are also gains from a broader range of experience and contacts. I'm not optimistic that any of this is socially or politically feasible.

Tyler Cowen AMA

Maxwell Tabarrok1y8

Many of the movements you are involved in and praise (e.g econ and EA) use online writing/blogging to communicate and generate new ideas.

Will this continue in recognizable form despite AIs surpassing human skill at writing? Are the young people who are investing in this skill learning how to use the hand powered loom in 1800?

5Tyler Cowen1yThe skill of the operator will remain paramount, see my book Average is Over. I don't view LLMs as substitutes for human beings, not for most tasks. Think of them instead as servants you can embed in your work flows. Writers and public intellectuals who are good at that will do very very well. Of course those skilled at that task are probably a very different set of people than those who have been succeeding to date.

Progress studies as an (incomplete) “idea machine”

Maxwell Tabarrok2y1

Do you think that you could significantly improve the prospects of nuclear power if you were commissioner of the NRC? or would you be too constrained by politics and other rules?

If you think it would be impactful to have a progress-minded person running the NRC, then convincing the current commissioner or getting the right person appointed seems like an important and even tractable agenda item.

1jasoncrawford2yA single commissioner would be too constrained I think. It's not just the NRC holding back nuclear: it's also state-level restrictions [https://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resources/states-restrictions-on-new-nuclear-power-facility.aspx] , the Yucca Mountain problem, environmental review, community opposition, etc.

Why doesn't progress seem to propagate?

Maxwell Tabarrok2y1

He uses specific case studies but the book definitely synthesizes general principles which can explain the nontechnical barriers in many technologies. Things like 'failures of nerve' and imagination and 'the Machiavelli effect' are illustrated with cases but are applicable to a wide range of technologies. Jason's summary is great but I really think you would enjoy the book. It's fun to read, not too long, and I think it is the most comprehensive answer to your question out there right now.

Why doesn't progress seem to propagate?

Maxwell Tabarrok2y4

If you haven't read it already, 'Where's my Flying Car' is basically a direct answer to the question you pose here. Hall has scientific, technological, political, and cultural analyses of several possibly impactful technologies like flying cars, nuclear energy, nanotech, etc.

2ejz2yI know it but it’s still pretty specific to the technologies and products the author is interested in. I’m more interested in a general question of: there are a number of technologies where the implementation barriers seem nontechnical, and it seems like it’s getting worse. Curious why.

2jasoncrawford2yMy summary/review: https://rootsofprogress.org/where-is-my-flying-car [https://rootsofprogress.org/where-is-my-flying-car]

Intellectual Property Is Worse Than You Think

Maxwell Tabarrok2y2

Patents are much more useful in high-CAPEX industries, but I wouldn't call them necessary. There have been expensive capital investments without patent protection, even if they are not common.
Agree here.
'Reasonable" does a lot of work here. Economists usually define reasonable as price = marginal cost and the whole goal here is to raise price high above that level. But the point is well taken that there is more consternation over pharma pricing than is justified.

This is sort of an orthogonal point but I think the reliance of pharma on patents is an example... (read more)

Intellectual Property Is Worse Than You Think

Maxwell Tabarrok2y3

I definitely agree that a bigger difference between original investment costs and copying costs makes patents more beneficial, but all of the criticisms I pointed out still apply. The Pharma industry spends billions on patent courts and lobbying. This has to be subtracted from the benefits that they provide, in addition to all the welfare losses from super expensive name-brand drugs.

What do you think about using prizes or direct subsidies for high CAPEX projects instead of IP?

In a more meta sense, I wonder if it is possible to have patents only for high CA... (read more)

3James Rosen-Birch2yThere are a few issues to parse here -- 1. Patents are a necessary part of motivation to commercialize in high-CAPEX industries 2. Pharma companies take advantage of regulatory capture and abuse the IP system to eke out longer exclusivity periods than are typically allowed by law (e.g. making negligible changes and repatenting a drug); this has been a net drain on innovation 3. No cap, benchmark, or standard on biotech pricing has allowed companies to slowly ramp up pricing far beyond what is considered reasonable (e.g. the gradual ramp-up to a Million Dollar Pill) Prizes and direct subsidies already exist for high-CAPEX projects and are also a crucial part of the system as it exists today. Almost all biopharma research starts out as state-funded work out of universities or NIH, until it reaches a point where it's ready for trials and gets spun out into a business. The trials themselves are then often further subsidized. There's a lot of work and money that has to go into making biotech viable just because of how little we understand about fundamental biology.