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🧵of 🧵s of papers I've tweeted about. A selected publications list / Twitter CV. First, some older papers I quite like before I was more active on Twitter. More here: michael.muthukrishna.com/publications/
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Michael Muthukrishna retweeted
Evidence is growing that we’re turning the corner on productivity.
US productivity grew at a 3.6% annual rate this past quarter.
That’s more than double the 1.5% average from 2007-2019.
The new numbers put me further ahead for my bet with Bob Gordon about productivity growth how far the US is now ahead of the CBO estimate at the start of the decade (before they knew about the pandemic or LLMs) courtesy of @jasonfurman’s
Econvitals.
US productivity grew at a 3.6% annual rate this past quarter.
That’s more than double the 1.5% average from 2007-2019.
The new numbers put me further ahead for my bet with Bob Gordon about productivity growth how far the US is now ahead of the CBO estimate at the start of the decade (before they knew about the pandemic or LLMs) courtesy of @jasonfurman’s
Econvitals.
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Looks like we’re on track for the whole world to rapidly change next year
This report shares our three subjective conclusions about risk:
1. We believe that, as of Oct 2026, the pace of capability growth on well-specified tasks is likely about 2x what it was from Mar 2024 to Oct 2025. We’re highly uncertain and would not be surprised by 1.3x–3x.
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Einstein, Newton and Aristotle changed the world, but you have access to more knowledge than they ever did. History shows that ordinary people with powerful ideas can transform society.
What could you accomplish with the knowledge available to you today?
What could you accomplish with the knowledge available to you today?
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Michael Muthukrishna retweeted
1/n Within 15 months of publication, most of the LLM claims we tested either no longer held or showed substantially diminished effects. How long does our knowledge of AI hold up? In our new study, we revisit 50 findings to see what fades, what persists, and what gets stronger. 🧵
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Michael Muthukrishna retweeted
The @WorldBankGroup's big new report on African urbanization dropped this week.
Full disclosure, @AfricaUrbanLab contributed, so I’m biased...worldbank.org/en/publication…
Also got to grill one of the lead authors, @mroberts10013, on the podcast. THread:
🧵 1/
Full disclosure, @AfricaUrbanLab contributed, so I’m biased...worldbank.org/en/publication…
Also got to grill one of the lead authors, @mroberts10013, on the podcast. THread:
🧵 1/
🎙️🏙️ A Special New Episode of the @AfricaUrbanLab Podcast: Mark Roberts Catalyzing Jobs & Economic Growth in African Cities
To mark the release of the @WorldBankGroup's new flagship report, Sub-Saharan Africa’s Urban Awakening: Catalyzing Economic Growth and Job Creation, to whicFounder & Executive Director @kurtislockhart sits down with @mroberts10013, Lead Urban Economist at the World Bank and one of the report’s lead authors.
The conversation centers on three areas at the heart of the report’s recommendations for cities: job-rich clusters, transport connections, and city revenue. Mark explains why jobs spread thinly across a city limit agglomeration economies, how informal and formal transport can work together to bring workers closer to opportunity, and why property tax remains the most untapped source of own-source revenue.
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Human survival has never depended on genetics alone.
By passing down knowledge across generations, our ancestors learned to survive environmental changes they had never experienced themselves.
Sometimes, grandma's wisdom was the difference between life and death.
By passing down knowledge across generations, our ancestors learned to survive environmental changes they had never experienced themselves.
Sometimes, grandma's wisdom was the difference between life and death.
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Michael Muthukrishna retweeted
We need to move to some mixed system like Australia's or Germany's in which there are co-pays. I'm not a high earner and it was affordable for me. Our aim should be: boost revenue not offer more free stuff. Yes, I've become a Tory in my old age.
I just went the easy route and got rid of the NHS.
Thank me later, Britain!
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Michael Muthukrishna retweeted
New working paper: Can AI forecast treatment effects in economics from pre-registration documents?
Answer: Yes. 1/
Answer: Yes. 1/
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Michael Muthukrishna retweeted
If you look closely enough, breakthroughs in everything are accelerating exponentially.
An exponential always starts off looking small.
An exponential always starts off looking small.
this might be my last normal tweet before biotech goes vertical
i'm not a whistleblower. I don't work at Lilly, Novo or any of the big labs
but there is a massive shift happening in human biology right now.
it's sitting in press releases and almost nobody reads them
the last 6 months alone:
- a once-daily pill roughly doubled median survival in metastatic pancreatic cancer (13.2 vs 6.6 months)
- a one-time gene editing infusion cut hereditary angioedema attacks 87%, and 62% of patients stayed attack-free and off all other prevention for 6 months
- a one-time gene edit for cholesterol dropped LDL up to 62%, and it held for over a year
- a personalized mrna vaccine beat keytruda alone in a 1,137 patient melanoma phase 3
- retatrutide hit ~28% weight loss in a phase 3
- an ai-designed drug entered phase 3
- a pill that regrows hair passed its second phase 3
- an immunotherapy that could let some rectal cancer patients skip surgery, chemo and radiation just got fda approved
- a man lived 271 days off dialysis on a pig kidney
- human cells were caught passing chromosome-sized chunks of DNA to their neighbors, and it changes how the neighbors behave
we are on the verge of an era where the human body is a software problem and the update cycle gets shorter everyday
stick around, it's going to get weird
bio/acc
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Just like humans, orcas have distinct cultures.
Different groups communicate through unique calls, prefer specific foods and pass down survival skills across generations.
Different groups communicate through unique calls, prefer specific foods and pass down survival skills across generations.
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Michael Muthukrishna retweeted
I wanted to visualise Britain's state spending ahead of the Budget, so I've vibe coded an app which presents it as a disk drive.
Take a look at the tradeoffs and see if you can make the budget fit:
britains-disk.pages.dev
Take a look at the tradeoffs and see if you can make the budget fit:
britains-disk.pages.dev
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Our survival depends on more than our brains and genes.
From cooking food to making fire, generations of shared knowledge have shaped human evolution and allowed us to survive in ways biology alone never could.
From cooking food to making fire, generations of shared knowledge have shaped human evolution and allowed us to survive in ways biology alone never could.
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Michael Muthukrishna retweeted
@emollick here's a take from my perspective as a founder of a company working on AI for research review
x.com/ben_golub/stat…
x.com/ben_golub/stat…
Take from the trenches:
AI produces amazing "improve this paper" feedback.
Its judgment about big-picture "what matters and why" is currently, imho, terrible.
That’s why @RefineDotInk focuses on making the argument better, not deciding whether the study is worthwhile.
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Michael Muthukrishna retweeted
Despite the constant complaints of peer review - the endless asks, uncompped time, and delays - it's a wonder why AI peer review hasn't been rapidly and widely adopted.
By every measure, Opus 4.8 beats human experts as peer reviewers in a study of 124 Harvard social science papers covering a range from statistical analyses to formal models to qualitative work.
As academics, we need to figure out how to adapt the practice of science to AI, fast.
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