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386 points carabiner | 27 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
1. ipsum2 ◴[] No.44008356[source]
MIT's article is quite scant on details. WSJ has more information, but still no specifics: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/mit-says-it-no-longer-stands-beh...

> The paper was championed by MIT economists Daron Acemoglu, who won the 2024 economics Nobel, and David Autor. The two said they were approached in January by a computer scientist with experience in materials science who questioned how the technology worked, and how a lab that he wasn’t aware of had experienced gains in innovation. Unable to resolve those concerns, they brought it to the attention of MIT, which began conducting a review.

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2. neonate ◴[] No.44008405[source]
https://archive.ph/r63jR
3. in9 ◴[] No.44008774[source]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Memorial_Prize_l...
replies(1): >>44008790 #
4. throwup238 ◴[] No.44008790{3}[source]
Nobel _Memorial_ Prize in Economic Sciences

That’s not a Nobel Prize.

replies(1): >>44008842 #
5. jldugger ◴[] No.44008804[source]
To quote someone elsewhere: "Okay, time to pack it up boys! Someone found the cheatcode to defeating economic research."
6. bee_rider ◴[] No.44008842{4}[source]
If that’s the distinction, it would have been helpful for the original comment to note that they were just sharing some silly trivia instead of making a point.
replies(2): >>44008934 #>>44009144 #
7. colechristensen ◴[] No.44008886[source]
This is inaccurate pedantry. It is commonly referred to as the nobel prize in economics and administered by the same foundation, the funding for it is a gift to the foundation from the Swedish central bank instead of being sourced from Nobel's estate.
replies(1): >>44008941 #
8. dooglius ◴[] No.44008934{5}[source]
It's not a silly piece of trivia, it's a completely different thing than what people think of as the "Nobel Prize", which is the set of prizes established by Nobel's will, not an unrelated prize named after him to leech off the prestige associated with his name.
replies(3): >>44009061 #>>44009116 #>>44009183 #
9. Keyframe ◴[] No.44008941{3}[source]
yeah, but also "Nobel accuses the awarding institution of misusing his family's name, and states that no member of the Nobel family has ever had the intention of establishing a prize in economics." It's hijacking of the brand.
replies(3): >>44009002 #>>44009141 #>>44009226 #
10. justin66 ◴[] No.44009002{4}[source]
That ship has already sailed… and circumnavigated the globe several times. It’s weird anyone feels obligated to bring this stuff up since everybody familiar with the prize knows the deal.

> Nobel accuses the awarding institution of misusing his family's name

From Alfred Nobel’s great grandnephew (I’m not even sure what that looks like on a family tree), to spare anyone else looking it up.

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11. AIPedant ◴[] No.44009061{6}[source]
The reason people correctly view this as silly trivia is that it's hardly an "unrelated prize." The Nobel Foundation administers the Economics prize in the same manner as all the others, and the awards are given at the same ceremony. You are making it sound like it's entirely separate when it's not. I don't think the Nobel Foundation was trying to "leech off the prestige associated with his name."

AFAICT your take exists entirely to delegitimize economics as a science. Very childish and frustrating.

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12. tokai ◴[] No.44009116{6}[source]
The price was created, and is given, by the Nobel Foundation, which was set up by Nobel's will to carry out his last wish. If you go to the official page of the Nobel Prize the Prize in Economic Sciences is listed with the other Nobel Prizes. Its not one of the original Nobel Prizes, but claiming its a completely different thing is not true.
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13. colechristensen ◴[] No.44009141{4}[source]
The grandson of Alfred Nobel's older brother complained publicly 20 years ago... about a prize that's been given now for nearly 60 years.

Yawn.

Distant relation of man who used his fortune making explosives to give a prize to prominent academic unhappy, complains. The foundation got to make the decision, was given the name. This is "old man yells at cloud" level of discourse. This distant relation has less of a right to say how the name gets to be used than the foundation created by the man.

14. belter ◴[] No.44009144{5}[source]
The comment means remember 1974. Cough cough Hayek... cough... Samuelson...
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15. bee_rider ◴[] No.44009174{5}[source]
Mostly it is just annoying when people refer to long-existing super niche arguments as if they are making a general statement of some sort.
16. bee_rider ◴[] No.44009183{6}[source]
The way they presented the information, it is a silly bit of trivia. If there wanted to make some sort of argument about prestige or whatever, they could have made it. Dropping hints of some niche rabbit hole issue is not making a good-faith argument.
17. bee_rider ◴[] No.44009200{6}[source]
What are we afraid of summoning Voldemort or something here? Just say whatever you are coughing at, lol.
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18. Rastonbury ◴[] No.44009226{4}[source]
It's pendantry, he won a prize and the great grand nephew says they shouldn't call it a Nobel prize. It's a waste of time to discuss what the prize should be called rather whether the award is worthy of being the best economics research/breakthrough that year. I don't know the answer to that but I don't really care about the nomenclature
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19. ◴[] No.44009271[source]
20. ◴[] No.44009276[source]
21. palmotea ◴[] No.44009320{7}[source]
>> It's not a silly piece of trivia, it's a completely different thing than what people think of as the "Nobel Prize", which is the set of prizes established by Nobel's will, not an unrelated prize named after him to leech off the prestige associated with his name.

> AFAICT your take exists entirely to delegitimize economics as a science. Very childish and frustrating.

You know, real sciences don't need shiny medallions to make them legitimate. I'd say your comment delegitimizes economics more than the GP's.

22. timewizard ◴[] No.44009479{5}[source]
> of being the best economics research/breakthrough that year.

So the idea that it should be a "peace prize" or contribute to the world as a whole is entirely lost in this definition. Which is why I find the Sveriges Riksbank memorial prize so unctuous.

23. tough ◴[] No.44010877{7}[source]
he was a decade early
24. elktown ◴[] No.44013289{7}[source]
The price was created by Sweden's central bank, not the Nobel foundation. It's true that it's now considered a Nobel prize proper for most, but that's not to say that it originally wasn't the economics field leeching on the scientific prestige of Nobel. To be honest, it feels pretty on-brand for it. And fwiw, in Swedish, it's almost always clearly distinguished with a "in memory of Nobel" or similar in the surrounding context.
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25. belter ◴[] No.44013692{7}[source]
The so called "Nobel Prize in Economics" wasn’t created by Nobel himself, a scientist and engineer, but by a grant from the Swedish Central Bank. The actual money for prize every year is not paid from the Nobel foundation funds, is paid by the endowment created by the bank. It pays the Nobel Foundation administrative expenses and the monetary component.

Its basically economists trying to launder their way into science by proximity. Like Astrology lobbying to get a physics badge.

So as example in 1974, they awarded the prize to Friedrich Hayek and Gunnar Myrdal. Two economists whose views could not be more opposed. That is like awarding the Physics Nobel jointly to someone who says “objects fall down” and another who insists “objects fall up.” Or honoring two chemists, one who says “water freezes at 0°C” and the other who claims it freezes at 5°C.

And if you say that would never happen, because physics has actual empirical standards then yes, exactly. You get the point.

Even Paul Samuelson, a 1970 economy nobel laureate and actual champion of applying mathematical methods to economics, dismissed Hayek’s most famous work.

Which, intentionally or not, remains the most accurate definition of economics I’ve ever seen: A discipline where ideology often outweighs evidence and both sides get prizes.

26. tokai ◴[] No.44025830{8}[source]
No it was funded by Swedens central Bank. They provide to money for the prize to the Nobel foundation. Step it up if you want to be pedantic please.
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27. elktown ◴[] No.44028016{9}[source]
1. It was set up during the Central bank's 300-year anniversary.

2. Without the central banks establishment of the perpetual funding there's no prize. Your argument is purely semantic and ofc snarky like your entire comment history.

3. You can read the story about it here in Swedish: https://sidea.se/nobelkuppen/ (The Nobel coup)