What I’ve been reading this week ending 27 July 2025

(video) This mechanism shrinks when pulled

Veritasium on Braess’ paradox — Wikipedia

Productivity growth is vital for the economy. Few companies actually create it | Fortune

“The reality is that productivity growth comes from a small number of companies moving a mile — by finding new ways to create business value — rather than by many firms moving a few inches through imitation.

In the U.S., 5% of companies accounted for 80% of productivity growth in a sample examined in new McKinsey Global Institute research.”

Why I’m Betting Against AI Agents in 2025 (Despite Building Them)

1. Error rates compound exponentially in multi-step workflows. 95% reliability per step = 36% success over 20 steps. Production needs 99.9%+.
2. Context windows create quadratic token costs. Long conversations become prohibitively expensive at scale.
3. The real challenge isn’t AI capabilities, it’s designing tools and feedback systems that agents can actually use effectively.

Call Me A Jerk: Persuading AI to Comply with Objectionable Requests — Wharton Generative AI Labs

“Large language models demonstrate systematic responses to persuasion principles, mirroring human compliance patterns despite lacking subjective experience or understanding.”

“AI systems developed parahuman tendencies simply by learning from human text and feedback during post training, suggesting that some social behaviors might not require consciousness or emotions, just exposure to enough human interaction patterns.”

To instantly sound more sincere, do this

“A simple way to sound more sincere is to use what I call the “One Extra Line” rule:

Don’t only state that you understand. Add one extra line to show that you understand their frustration.”

Seven Things We Learned from People Who Changed Their View on Vaccines | by Dr. Jess Steier | Jul, 2025 | Medium

1. Change takes time
2. Some people do experience adverse effects
3. Bedside manner matters
4. Moms [aka influential stakeholders] matter
5. Doing your “own research” means different things to different people
6. Traumatic experiences do trigger immediate change
7. Listen first, always

Should Democrats go back to neoliberalism? — by Noah Smith

“…at some point you actually have to make stuff work in order to make the voters like you.”