Marshall Van Alstyne

5K posts

Marshall Van Alstyne banner
Marshall Van Alstyne

Marshall Van Alstyne

@InfoEcon

Interested in human side of #information #economics #social #networks #strategy Allen & Kelli Questrom Chair in IS Boston University

Boston Katılım Mayıs 2010
1.9K Takip Edilen6K Takipçiler
Marshall Van Alstyne
Marshall Van Alstyne@InfoEcon·
Want to influence an election? Write your content without robot exclusion codes so AI will cite you
Andy Hall@ahall_research

Why do major AI models tell left-wing voters in Japan to vote for the communist party? My new research paper led by Sho Miyazaki. In 2026, voters across the world will be asking AI to help them vote. How will the AI respond? We study this question in Japan, which recently held a snap election. When voters provide policy positions, we find that the models rely heavily on this information—and in Japan, the models heavily recommend the communist party in response to left-wing positions, even though the positions we provided are held by a range of other parties. Why are the AIs doing this? We’re not sure, but we have a theory: in Japan, the communist party operates a content-heavy, fully open website with a “newspaper” that is openly accessible for AI models. In contrast, many Japanese news outlets block AI models from accessing their content. The result: the Japanese Communist Party website is one of the most-cited “news sources” in our study. This pattern of recommending the JCP is consistent across many models, including the most recent frontier models. There’s much more work to do here, but we think our paper suggests two main takeaways: AI models should be more careful about what sources they consider news, maybe especially in non-US contexts where the model companies may hold less policy expertise Parties and news sources that want to influence AI recommendations should think twice about excluding their content from AI. To paraphrase @tylercowen, when it comes to elections and voting, journalists may want to “write for the AI”! Governments may want to consider policies that allow this content to be used for voting recommendations but not for other AI model use cases. Looking forward to everyone’s feedback as we prepare to submit this paper and turn to studying US voting recommendations in advance of November’s midterms. Check out the full paper below.

English
0
0
1
92
Marshall Van Alstyne retweetledi
Justin Wolfers
Justin Wolfers@JustinWolfers·
Notice the pattern: help a narrow group loudly, hurt everyone else quietly. Tariffs help a few steel workers but raise prices for every firm using steel. Tax cuts favor the rich while squeezing social programs. Politically noisy wins, economically costly losses.
English
27
718
2.4K
78.8K
Marshall Van Alstyne
Marshall Van Alstyne@InfoEcon·
What happens when AI makes answers really cheap? Human questions become ever more important. We also need the skill to challenge those answers lest we become complacent and miss the bigger picture. New work with @sanguit shows how to do this: dropbox.com/scl/fi/sieyk5t…
Marshall Van Alstyne tweet media
English
1
2
2
189
Marshall Van Alstyne retweetledi
Justin Wolfers
Justin Wolfers@JustinWolfers·
"Does this feel like or look like a well-run competent administration? It took them 10 months to discover that the United States doesn't grow bananas and that therefore if we tariff bananas that that's not going to bring banana factories on shore."
English
94
1.7K
7.5K
175.9K
Marshall Van Alstyne
Marshall Van Alstyne@InfoEcon·
Resist
Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡@shanaka86

BREAKING: The Most Sweeping Consolidation of U.S. Economic Power Since 1971 Trump’s inner circle is architecting something Wall Street hasn’t seen in half a century. If Kevin Hassett takes the Federal Reserve Chair (80% odds on Kalshi), Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will simultaneously lead the National Economic Council. One man. Treasury. The NEC. Already acting IRS Commissioner. The implications are staggering. Bessent would control the $36.2 trillion debt ceiling negotiations, coordinate all White House economic policy on taxes, energy, and healthcare, AND oversee federal tax collection. Meanwhile, his handpicked Fed Chair candidate sits atop the world’s most powerful central bank. This is not speculation. Bloomberg confirmed December 3rd that aides are actively discussing this structure. Trump himself called Hassett a “potential Fed chair” at the Cabinet meeting. The announcement comes early 2026. Historical parallel: The last time fiscal and monetary policy aligned this tightly under executive influence was Nixon and Arthur Burns. That ended with 12% inflation and a decade of stagflation. The NEC role requires zero Senate confirmation. Bessent walks in the day Hassett walks out. Bond traders are already pricing the risk. Ten-year Treasury yields ticked higher on the news. Translation: markets smell softer inflation discipline ahead. What to watch: Fed decision December 10th. Trump’s official announcement Q1 2026. Senate confirmation hearings that will define whether institutional independence survives this administration. The architecture of American economic governance is being redrawn in real time. This is not a drill.

English
0
0
0
158