#AcademicRunPlaylist - 2/21/25

Well it was my last full day in Japan, but at least I got to see some plum blossoms while walking around Tokyo and listening to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an excellent talk by Robb Willer on using LLMs to estimate social science experiment effects at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center. I've got to admit, I was skeptical when I saw the premise of this talk, but it was fairly convincing. This seems like a promising approach for stress testing a hypothesis before going out and actually running an experiment. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkSpNxPvXWU

Next was an informative conversation with Johnnie Kallas on collective action activity in the US in 2024 and the outlook for 2025 at The Burnes Center for Social Change https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRtT_BTeBfI

Next was a timely talk by Patrick Heinrich on the state of multilingualism in Japan at Tokyo College https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAvgbdbI4B4

Next was a compelling talk by Allison Pugh on the importance of human relationships in work and the issues with current technology development approaches at The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Pugh takes a hammer to the self-serving automation push that many in the tech industry are advocating, demonstrating through rigorous research how narrowly defined goal metrics can lead to adoption of systems with deleterious effects. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5jDMiWHXSM

Next was a great talk by Laura Veldkamp on valuing firms' data at the Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy & Finance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M05QxyTEAGI

Last was "The Earth Transformed" by Peter Frankopan. This book uniquely contextualizes human history by positioning the environment as an important player, exploring the effects of different environmental changes over the millennia and situating those changes within major human events. Frankopan doesn't engage in environmental determinism - he's quick to point out when the environment is much more of a bit player in a particular event - but it is enlightening to get a full sense of the oft-neglected power of the environment in driving events. The science around modern times does get a bit shaky (there's a lot on cloud seeding that is unfounded, for example), and the lack of systematic exploration of different types of environmental changes over the millennia leaves a big gap. But overall this is an extremely insightful read. Highly recommend https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/635264/the-earth-transformed-by-peter-frankopan/