That's Interesting

  • The Midlife Crisis

    This paper documents a longitudinal crisis of midlife among the inhabitants of rich nations. Yet middle-aged citizens in their data sets are close to their peak earnings, have typically experienced little or no illness, reside in some of the safest countries in the world, and live in the most prosperous era in human history. This is paradoxical and troubling. The paper shows that there are approximately quadratic hill-shaped patterns in data on midlife suicide, sleeping problems, alcohol dependence, concentration difficulties, memory problems, intense job strain, disabling headaches, suicidal feelings, and extreme depression.

    Read More
  • Generative AI Can Harm Learning

    Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to revolutionize how humans work, and has already demonstrated promise in significantly improving human productivity. However, a key remaining question is how generative AI affects learning, namely, how humans acquire new skills as they perform tasks. This kind of skill learning is critical to long-term productivity gains, especially in domains where generative AI is fallible and human experts must check its outputs.

    Read More
  • Intertemporal Empathy Decline: Feeling Less Distress for Future Others’ Suffering

    The present actions of individuals and society at large can cause outsized consequences on future generations’ quality of life.   This article demonstrates evidence of an intertemporal  empathy decline such that people feel less empathy toward another person’s suffering in the future compared to the present despite predicting that the same amount of pain would be felt.

    Read More
  • Introducing peanut in infancy prevents peanut allergy into adolescence

    Feeding children peanut products regularly from infancy to age 5 years reduced the rate of peanut allergy in adolescence by 71%, even when the children ate or avoided peanut products as desired for many years. These new findings, from a study sponsored and co-funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), provide conclusive evidence that achieving long-term prevention of peanut allergy is possible through early allergen consumption.

    Read More
  • Forget Everything You Think You Know About Time

    A theoretical physicist challenges our common notions about the fourth dimension.

    Read More
  • The Physics and Philosophy of Time – with Carlo Rovelli

    From Boltzmann to quantum theory, from Einstein to loop quantum gravity, our understanding of time has been undergoing radical transformations. Carlo Rovelli brings together physics, philosophy and art to unravel the mystery of time.

    Read More
  • Financial Statement Analysis with Large Language Models

    This paper investigates whether an LLM can successfully perform financial statement analysis in a way similar to a professional human analyst. Standardized and anonymous financial statements  was provided to GPT4 and the model was instructed to analyze them to determine the direction of future earnings. Even without any narrative or industry-specific information, the LLM outperformed financial analysts in its ability to predict earnings changes.

    Read More
  • Google Launches a New Course Called “AI Essentials”

    In late April, Google announced the launch of Google AI Essentials, a new self-paced course designed to help people learn AI skills that can boost their productivity. Taught by Google’s AI experts, and assuming no prior knowledge of programming, the course ventures to show students how to “use AI in the real world”.

    Read More
  • Fundamental Analysis via Machine Learning

    This article examines the efficacy of machine learning in a central task of fundamental analysis: forecasting corporate earnings. We find that machine learning models not only generate significantly more accurate and informative out-of-sample forecasts than the state-of-the-art models in the literature but also perform better compared to analysts’ consensus forecasts.

    Read More
  • Why loneliness is bad for your health

    A lack of social interaction is linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia and more. Researchers are unpicking how the brain mediates these effects.

    Read More
  • Select Topics

Show All