RestOfWorld: “Unlike the compute-heavy AI models developed by Silicon Valley, the smaller models being built in India, Indonesia, and elsewhere can run on low-end devices and low-bandwidth networks, and be deployed in sectors such as agriculture, health-care, and education. The models are not only cost-efficient, they also have a lower impact on the environment, Sathiaseelan said. “This is perhaps the most important dimension of frugal AI,” he said. “It is about building leaner, more efficient systems from the ground up. By design, the systems use less compute, less memory, and less energy, which directly translates into a smaller carbon footprint.””
Arnold Kling on Violence and Social Orders, by Douglass C. North, John J. Wallis, and Barry R. Weingast: “A libertarian utopia in which the state is small and weak is not possible. A society that can create economic assets will tempt groups to use violence to extract wealth. For order to prevail, such violence must be suppressed. In a limited-access order, the governing coalition is able to extract wealth, but at least there is order in which wealth is created. People outside of the ruling coalition cannot get rich, but at least they can live in peace and security. In an open-access order, less of the available wealth is extracted by those in power, and people outside of the ruling coalition have at least a bit of an opportunity to get rich. Nation-building will fail. That is, the attempt to impose an open-access order on a country will fail if it has groups that are not willing to refrain from violence.”
FT: “In the US, the top four micro-drama apps — all China-backed — have attracted a combined 97mn downloads. The sector generated $966mn in net in-app revenue in 2025, up from $21mn in 2022, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Dozens of Chinese-produced titles — such as The Divorced Billionaire Heiress — have each brought in millions, or sometimes tens of millions, in revenue. “How to create emotional push and pull — the kind of roller-coaster feelings that swing from anxious to angry to joyful and moved — is something Chinese screenwriters are good at,” said Zhu Shicong, head of studio at DramaBox, a leading Chinese-backed platform in the US.”
Arnold Kling: “Because I see starting a business as a learning exercise, I am very opposed to entrepreneurs using “stealth mode.” Keeping your main ideas secret means cutting yourself off from information. Yes, you are hiding ideas from competitors, but untested ideas are not as valuable as you might suppose. Meanwhile, you are losing out on the information that you would otherwise obtain from discussing your product with potential customers and other experienced entrepreneurs. The trial-and-error experience that you could gain by revealing your hypotheses strikes me as much more important than the knowledge that you are trying to keep secret.”
