Maximilian Kasy

💥 📚 Next step on the book journey:📚💥 "The Means of Prediction - How AI Really Works (and Who Benefits)" is now in the UChicago Press catalog, and available for pre-order online!!! press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Speculative reading rec #6: Solaris, Stanisław Lem (1961). Scientists orbiting a planet-wide ocean are visited by embodiments of their own memories. Can we understand alien minds, or our own? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris... (more recs coming!)

Speculative reading rec #5: The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin (1974). A physicist from an anarchist moon visits the capitalist planet next door. What is freedom, what are its material conditions? What are both societies’ flaws? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dis... (more recs coming!)

Speculative reading rec #4: The Three-Body Problem trilogy, Liu Cixin. A scientist answers a message from space during the Cultural Revolution, and an alien fleet sets off for Earth. Deterrence theory at its darkest. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembr... (more recs coming!)

Speculative reading rec #3: The Vorrh trilogy, Brian Catling. Beside a colonial African town lies an endless, sentient forest that erases the memory of all who enter. A hallucinatory epic - colonial extraction, vision and blindness. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/DEK/t... (more recs coming!)

We will again be hiring for multiple junior positions at @oxfordecondept.bsky.social! Details and application instructions here: econjobmarket.org/positions/12... Apply numerously!

Speculative reading rec #2: Lilith’s Brood, Octavia E. Butler. After a nuclear war, aliens save what’s left of humanity, at the price of merging with them genetically. Morally ambivalent in the best of ways. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith%... (more recs coming!)

NEW✨ Can we democratise control over AI? The Means of Prediction by @maxkasy.bsky.social @uchicagopress.bsky.social examines how AI's objectives are shaped by the companies that own it and asks, could we reclaim power? Read a review by Akash Appal 👉 blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofb...

Helpful info from EFIP member Max Kasy. #economics #inequality #EFIP

Speculative reading rec #1: War with the Newts, Karel Čapek (1936). Humans find a species of intelligent newts and put them to work, until things go awry. Chilling satire of capitalism, nationalism and race science, written as fascism rose. en.wikisource.org/wiki/War_wit... (more recs coming!)

We will again be hiring for multiple junior positions at @oxfordecondept.bsky.social! Details and application instructions here: econjobmarket.org/positions/12... Apply numerously!

How are modern language models trained? New slides for my ML course: maxkasy.github.io/home/files/t... All course materials available here: maxkasy.github.io/home/ML_Oxfo...

⏰Event happening tomorrow⏰ On 21 October, we are delighted to host a talk with Prof Michael Jordan (University of California, Berkeley) who will present ‘A collectivist, economic perspective on AI’. Join for drinks in the Staff Common Room, 5th floor Old Building, LSE afterwards! 🔗 bit.ly/3VaAGwG

How are modern language models trained? New slides for my ML course: maxkasy.github.io/home/files/t... All course materials available here: maxkasy.github.io/home/ML_Oxfo...

Interview zu KI in der Süddeutschen Zeitung, auch in der heutigen Printausgabe: www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/maxim...

Interview zu KI in der Süddeutschen Zeitung, auch in der heutigen Printausgabe: www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/maxim...

Huge congratulations to GC Stone Center affiliated scholar Ellora Derenoncourt on her 2026 MacArthur Fellowship! www.macfound.org/videos/2026-...

Reinforcement Learning: Theory and Algorithms rltheorybook.github.io/rltheorybook... (Theory behind RL techniques used in RLHF) Theoretical Perspectives on Knowledge Distillation: A Review wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... (Introduction to model distillation) 5/5

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback rlhfbook.com (Engineering aspects of fine-tuning models to objectives from human feedback or verifiable rewards) 4/5

The Emerging Market for Intelligence: How Firms Buy and Sell AI www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=... (Documents competitiveness of open weight models) 3/5

This creates opportunities for local / democratic control: - Take open-weight foundation models - Fine tune for local / democratically chosen objectives using RL. Here some useful reading recs: 2/5

Thread: Key developments in AI / LLMs 1. reinforcement learning (RL, from human feedback or verifiable rewards), 2. open weight models; some based on distillation of commercial models, not far behind commercial alternatives. 1/5

Jetzt offiziell verfügbar, in deutscher Übersetzung: "Die Mittel der Prädiktion Wie KI wirklich funktioniert (und wer davon profitiert)" www.suhrkamp.de/buch/maximil... In guter Gesellschaft im aktuellen @suhrkamp.de Katalog :-)

Unsere Neuerscheinungen im August sind da: shrk.vg/Neuerscheinu... @misik.bsky.social @ohneklippo.bsky.social @carlos-barragan.bsky.social @maxkasy.bsky.social @juliannhofmann.bsky.social @isabelallende.com

Heute in der FAZ (@faznet.bsky.social): „Die entscheidende Frage der KI lautet: Wer entscheidet, was optimiert wird?“ www.faz.net/aktuell/wirt...

Heute in der FAZ (@faznet.bsky.social): „Die entscheidende Frage der KI lautet: Wer entscheidet, was optimiert wird?“ www.faz.net/aktuell/wirt...

Aujourd'hui dans L'Echo (@lechobe, Belgique): www.lecho.be/opinions/gen...

Aujourd'hui dans L'Echo (@lechobe, Belgique): www.lecho.be/opinions/gen...

Great interview with @triofrancos.bsky.social on the geopolitics of the renewable energy transition:

A guide for economists writing a literature review who want to summarize evidence, incorporate covariates, and adjust for selectivity, from Peter Ganong, Avik Garg, and Maximilian Kasy www.nber.org/papers/w35403

New paper with @p_ganong & Avik Garg: From literature review to effect prediction for a new context - allowing for effect heterogeneity & publication bias. maxkasy.github.io/home/files/p...

New paper with @p_ganong & Avik Garg: From literature review to effect prediction for a new context - allowing for effect heterogeneity & publication bias. maxkasy.github.io/home/files/p...

In „The Means of Prediction” wirft @maxkasy.bsky.social einen kritischen Blick auf Machtfragen rund um KI. @sberg.bsky.social und @annkoster.bsky.social haben das Buch gelesen und setzen es in ihrem Literaturessay zu anderen Debattenbeiträgen ins Verhältnis. www.soziopolis.de/its-the-obje...

Chapters 1–4 out now! Understanding our Economy, CORE's textbook for beginners and students at two-year and four-year colleges and universities in North America, is online. Covers the environment, climate, inequality, cost of living & more. Read it free: books.core-econ.org/understandin...

Why does Elon Musk stoke racist violence and pogroms, and what are the parallels to 19th century Russia? Thoughtful essay worth reading: giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... Big Tech is stoking unrest in the UK. Why?

Why does Elon Musk stoke racist violence and pogroms, and what are the parallels to 19th century Russia? Thoughtful essay worth reading: giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... Big Tech is stoking unrest in the UK. Why?

So, naive question about these campuses that pay OpenAI $13mil/yr. Why don’t they pour that money into a cluster running the strongest available open-weight model, with API and interactive options. And if the answer is “overhead,” why aren’t we collaborating?

www.diepresse.com/26721984/wie...

Last day of frontier talks!

1/n Verena Halsmayer giving the Blanqui lecture on the history of the Solow model, based on her wonderful book www.cambridge.org/core/books/m... #eshethes2026 Key insights:

Starting on Monday!

"Meetings are held, emails are sent, phone calls are made, and something like 520,000 children die of malnutrition, diarrhea, tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV." prospect.org/2026/05/22/w...