What we’re reading (3/21)
“China Explores Limiting Its Own Exports to Mollify Trump” (Wall Street Journal). “During Donald Trump’s first presidency, China was determined not to yield to American pressure over trade like Japan did in the 1980s. Now, faced with an even greater economic assault from the second Trump presidency at a time of sluggish growth at home, Beijing may take a page from Tokyo’s playbook—on one specific issue it sees as in its own interest. Like Japan decades ago, China is considering trying to blunt greater U.S. tariffs and other trade barriers by offering to curb the quantity of certain goods exported to the U.S., according to advisers to the Chinese government. Tokyo’s adoption of so-called voluntary export restraints, or VERs, to limit its auto shipments to the U.S. in the 1980s helped prevent Washington from imposing higher import duties.”
“AI Wars” (Paul Taylor). “It is hard to know exactly how innovative DeepSeek is. Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind has said that he doesn’t think it is an outlier, and many of the techniques described as novel in DeepSeek’s reports are similar to those implemented by others. The much quoted figure of $5.5 million for the cost of training the DeepSeek model is taken from a 2024 paper and refers only to the cost of the computation required for the final training run for the model that provided the foundation for R1.”
“A Solution To The Housing Shortage” (City Journal). “Housing is too expensive because its development is overregulated. Yet the regulations that drive up housing costs—arcane local zoning and building codes—are not the kinds that congressional Republicans are best positioned to fight. Moreover, many of the local codes protect suburban single-family-home neighborhoods, a residential ideal that Trump has pointedly defended.”
“Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Says Every Company Will Become An ‘AI Factory.’ Here’s What He Means.” (Business Insider). “Huang, Rauch, and other technologists think modern companies will succeed by generating the most tokens. They will be AI factories churning out tokens that will be used to improve and run AI systems that help businesses make better products and services.”
“Federal Judge Pushes Back On Acting Social Security Head Over Threat To Close Agency” (Washington Post). “Acting Social Security commissioner Leland Dudek threatened Thursday evening to bar Social Security Administration employees from accessing its computer systems in response to a judge’s order blocking the U.S. DOGE Service from accessing sensitive taxpayer data. Less than 24 hours later — after the judge rejected his argument and the White House intervened — Dudek is saying he was ‘out of line.’”
