Crypto crashed, Musk mauled Twitter, and Messi made a deep fake mess. Every one of them deserves an award and ridicule. It is time for the digital awards of 2022.
Digital Year in Review
The year in review for digital technology
It is that time of the year again! Time to review the digital events of 2020 and recognize achievements. Your humble correspondent has no idea how to do this at a grand scale without making a mockery of it. If the post can skewer Hollywood at the same time, then all the better. This post …
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Triggers, Transmissions, and Adjustments
Take a step back from the daily details of events. Compare the recession unfolding in the United States at this moment with the two previous downturns. Today’s economic events share a surprising set of common features with the dot-com boom and bust of 1997 to 2001, and fewer similarities with the financial meltdown of 2008-09. …
An old result on automation and wages
The first issue of AER Insights is out and the very first article is one by Francesco Caselli and Alan Manning on "Robot Arithmetic: New Technologies and Wages." Here is the abstract: Existing economic models show how new technology can cause large changes in relative wages and inequality. But there are also claims, based largely …
The Value of Free in GDP
Did the rise of free information technology improve GDP? It is commonly assumed that it did. After all, the Internet has changed the way we work, play, and shop. Smartphones and free apps are ubiquitous. Many forms of advertising moved online quite a while ago and support gazillions of “free” services. Free apps changed leisure long ago—just ask any teenager or any parent …
Backwards digital thinking
It happens often. An old media company makes a crazy and misunderstood statement about new media. Sometimes I start to think that after all of these years, maybe just maybe, they will start to get it. But then a story appears that demonstrates how far off things are. That happened today. The Globe and Mail …
Google's Big Photos Jump and Machine Learning
After years of seeming missteps (e.g., Google Plus, Google Glass, Google Wave, Google Keep), Google roared back yesterday with a new Photos service. This seems pedestrian in terms of Google's usual ambitions but actually it is incredibly on mission; that is, if Google's mission is to organise the world's information. The new service is billed …
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The ownership of the machines
CGP Grey makes great explanatory videos. They are very thoughtful and noticeably PowerPoint generated but this time he branched out into a massive 15 minute documentary styled affair. The video is “no humans need apply” and it deals with topics near to my co-blogger Erik Brynjolfsson’s heart. The story in the video is that if …
Digitopoly 