Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander

“One of the most common arguments against AI safety is: ‘Here’s an example of a time someone was worried about something, but it didn’t happen. Therefore, AI, which you are worried about, also won’t happen.’ I always give the obvious answer: ‘Okay, but there are other examples of times someone was worried about something, and it did happen, right? How do we know AI isn’t more like those?’ The people I’m arguing with always seem so surprised by this response, as if I’m committing some sort of betrayal by destroying their beautiful argument. The first hundred times this happened, I thought I must be misunderstanding something. … But people keep bringing it up, again and again. Very smart people, people who I otherwise respect, make this argument and genuinely expect it to convince people!” (04/25/24)

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/desperately-trying-to-fathom-the

Source: Quillette
by Jeffrey S Flier

“In the US, free speech is protected by the First Amendment, which restricts the ability of government to limit citizens’ speech, with exceptions for speech that incites violence, represents a true threat to safety by narrowly defined criteria, or constitutes fraud or defamation. Hate speech, even if vile, is protected under the First Amendment. First Amendment protections don’t apply to private institutions, like many universities, though most universities voluntarily establish free speech rights for their communities. Academic freedom is a more limited concept, protecting scholars, researchers, and educators from censorship, discipline, or retaliation by their institutions. Academic freedom is essential to the pursuit and transmission of knowledge and to critical thinking.” (04/25/24)

https://quillette.com/2024/04/25/academic-freedom-in-higher-education-and-medicine/

Source: Hoover Institution

“One of the ideas that economists are most sure of is that when the price of something rises, other than due to something that shifts the whole demand curve, the quantity demanded falls. Conversely, when the price of something falls, the quantity demanded increases. This is not controversial in economics. Moreover, it’s so clear that it is part of our mutual understanding, even for non-economists. … The law of demand applies to virtually everything: the demand for steaks, the demand for cars, the demand for houses, and, yes, the demand for labor. That means that when governments raise the price of relatively unskilled labor by substantially raising the minimum wage, the number of unskilled workers employed will fall.” (04/25/24)

https://www.hoover.org/research/high-minimum-wage-laws-hurt-many-workers

Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen

“Every news outlet has a busy period. For Variety, it’s the time when Hollywood gives out awards; for The Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg, it’s quarterly earnings season; and for the Prospect, it’s the narrow period when executive branch agencies issue final rules in the last year of a presidential term, before the window opens whereby these regulations could be overturned the following year by a new president, under the Congressional Review Act. … In just the past few days, the executive branch has banned all employee noncompete agreements, enacted a minimum staffing ratio for nursing homes, initiated the American Climate Corps, opened up overtime benefits to more employees, updated the definitions that require investment advisers to operate in the best interest of retirement savers, enhanced privacy protections for medical records for out-of-state abortions, and prevented illegal fees in mortgage servicing.” (04/25/24)

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-04-25-transportation-departments-new-path/