ChatGPT is getting a major upgrade
ChatGPT is getting a major upgrade
Plus: New House forecast launch, Silver on changes at FiveThirtyEight, AEI on the 2024 landscape, a history of electoral college bias, and the GOP's Mormon problem
No. 274 | July 7, 2023
🤖 Artificial Intelligence
Ethan Mollick: What AI can do with a toolbox... Getting started with Code Interpreter (One Useful Thing)
“Everyone is about to get access to the single most useful, interesting mode of AI I have used - ChatGPT with Code Interpreter. I have had the alpha version of this for a couple months (I was given access as a researcher off the waitlist), and I wanted to give you a little bit of guidance as to why I think this is a really big deal, as well as how to start using it.
Code Interpreter continues OpenAI’s long tradition of giving terrible names to things, because it might be most useful for those who do not code at all. It essentially allows the most advanced AI available, GPT-4, to upload and download information, and to write and execute programs for you, in a persistent workspace. That allows the AI to do all sorts of things it couldn’t do before, and be useful in ways that were impossible with ChatGPT.”
🗳️ Elections
Nate Silver: Polling averages shouldn't be political litmus tests (Silver Bulletin)
“This past week, the new Editorial Director of Data Analytics at ABC News, G. Elliott Morris, who was brought in to work with the remaining FiveThirtyEight team, sent a letter to the polling firm Rasmussen Reports demanding that they answer a series of questions about their political views and polling methodology or be banned from FiveThirtyEight’s polling averages, election forecasts and news coverage. I found several things about the letter to be misguided.”
Daniel A. Cox and Ruy Teixeira: The 2024 Presidential Election: Evolving Political Coalitions and Familiar Partisan Divisions (American Enterprise Institute)
“Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, the AEI Survey Center on American Life conducted a national survey of Americans that explored a wide range of political attitudes, current voting preferences, and perceptions of the political parties.
A weary public is evenly divided over America’s future. Roughly half of Americans are optimistic about the days ahead, while slightly more are pessimistic (48 percent vs. 51 percent, respectively). A stark racial divide emerges on this question—black Americans are far more optimistic about the future than are white Americans (63 percent vs. 42 percent).
Americans see inflation (62 percent), the affordability of health care (58 percent), and gun violence (58 percent) as major problems facing the nation. Crime (53 percent), drug addiction (51 percent), and the federal budget deficit (51 percent) are also cited as major problems.”
Harrison Lavelle and Armin Thomas: The Milligan Decision: What Does It Mean for Alabama Redistricting? (Split Ticket)
“On June 8th, the Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 decision in Allen v. Milligan, finding that Alabama’s current congressional map likely violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The decision paves the way for a second majority-black district in the state. More importantly, the Court held that the VRA does apply to redistricting and forbids states from drawing maps that have a discriminatory effect – such as the dilution of black voting power. The 14th and 15th amendments, by contrast, only ban laws enacted with racially discriminatory intent.
To understand how the majority came to this conclusion, let’s take a brief look at the history of the VRA and the Court’s decision in Thornburg v. Gingles (1986). When the VRA was originally passed, its Section 2 banned the implementation of any “voting qualification or procedure” that “denied or abridged” the right to vote based on, among other factors, race. In City of Mobile v. Bolden (1980), the Court interpreted that text to mean that discriminatory intent, not just discriminatory effect, had to be present for a “facially-neutral” redistricting map to violate the VRA.”
J. Miles Coleman and Kyle Kondik: A Brief History of Electoral College Bias (Sabato’s Crystal Ball)
“A little over a month ago, we wrapped up a series that examined the relative “lean” of each state in presidential elections since 2000. One state that we paid special attention to in that series was Wisconsin. In 4 of the previous 6 presidential elections, the Badger State has been decided by less than a percentage point.
OK, so Wisconsin is usually a competitive state, which isn’t very surprising — so where’s this going?
Well, Wisconsin is also notable because it was the “tipping point” state in the last two elections. Essentially, the tipping point state is the state that pushes the winning candidate over the 270 electoral votes required to become president. Using the 2020 election as a template, let’s imagine all the states — and the District of Columbia — on a continuum, ranging from most Democratic to most Republican. Starting out with DC, which gave Joe Biden an 87-point margin, we’ll put 3 electoral votes in the Democratic column. The bluest state is Vermont, which went to Biden by 35 points and is also worth 3 electoral votes. So it is next, bringing his cumulative total up to 6 electoral votes. After repeating this several more times, we’ve added Pennsylvania, which brings Biden up to 269 electoral votes. Though we are sticking purely to Electoral College math for the purposes of this article, a 269-269 tie would have kicked the election to the House — Republicans, controlling a majority of delegations, would have almost certainly voted to keep Donald Trump in power. So Biden needed at least one more electoral vote.”
Amy Walter: Can Bidenomics Turn Gloomy Views on the Economy Around? (Cook Political Report)
“Not that long ago, the strength or weakness of the economy was considered the most important factor in a presidential election. An incumbent who presided over a time of robust growth and employment (Ronald Reagan in 1984 or Bill Clinton 1996) won reelection. Those leading during a time of economic distress (Jimmy Carter in 1980 or George H. W. Bush in 1992) lost. Those of us of a certain age have been quoting James Carville's ‘it's the economy, stupid,’ for more than 30 years.
Recently, however, voter opinions of the economy have become less predictive of the election outcome.
Back in 2012, the campaign of Republican nominee Mitt Romney argued that the country's pessimism about the state of the economy and their distrust of Barack Obama's handling of it would ultimately doom the incumbent. In the end, Obama won rather handily, thanks in large part to his campaign's ability to recast the debate from one about the state of the economy into one about who is best qualified to understand the struggles of average Americans.”
👫 Demographics
David Byler: Republicans have a glaring Mormon problem (The Washington Post)
“Republicans often find themselves on the losing end of demographic shifts as the United States grows more racially diverse, better-educated and less religious. Only one long-term trend — the rapid growth of the reliably conservative Mormon Church — has consistently provided the GOP with good news.
But that consolation might be slipping away. Mormonism is in decline, and Democrats are gaining traction with younger church members. There are no easy solutions for the church or the GOP.”
🗺️ Data Visualization
Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and Holly Fuong: The Supreme Court Had A Few Surprises This Year. That Doesn’t Make It Moderate (FiveThirtyEight)
“One major metric of judicial ideology suggests that the center of gravity on the court is basically unchanged. According to the preliminary Martin-Quinn scores, which measure justices’ ideology relative to each other in each individual term, there’s no single “swing” justice — not even Chief Justice John Roberts, who authored some of this term’s major opinions. Instead, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas continue to fall on the rightmost boundary of the court, and the other conservative justices are much harder to distinguish, particularly Roberts and Kavanaugh. Meanwhile, in her first year on the bench, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson established herself as an outspoken member of the court’s liberal minority, with a scorching dissent in the court’s decision rejecting the use of race-conscious admissions in higher education.”
🔬 Academia
📊 Public Opinion
Katy Lin and Amina Dunn: Americans most likely to say the best age for a president is in 50s (Pew Research Center)
“When asked about the ideal age of a president, around half of Americans (49%) say they prefer someone in their 50s, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.
Another 24% say it’s best for a president to be in their 60s, while 17% say they should be in their 40s.
Just 3% of Americans say they prefer a president to be in their 70s or older. An equally tiny share (3%) say it’s best for a president to be in their 30s. (The minimum age for a presidential candidate is 35.)”
Russell Contreras: Survey: Religion, race shape views on pronoun usage (Axios)
“Americans' support for the use of gender-neutral pronouns such as ‘they’ instead of ‘he’ or ‘she’ varies widely depending on race, religion and generation, according to a new survey.
Why it matters: Neutral pronouns have been used for centuries but have gotten increasing public attention as LGBTQ+ rights — and attacks on them — have been a focus of debates in U.S. politics, schools and businesses. A 2021 study estimated 1.2 million U.S. adults identified as nonbinary.”
Kagan and Jackson agreed just as much with Sotomayor as Roberts with Kavanaugh...