ChatGPT is based on a language model, which assigns a probability distribution over sequences of words. A rough way to think about it: Given the start of a sentence, it will try to guess the most likely words to come next. (2/n)
— David Smerdon (@dsmerdon) January 27, 2023
ChatGPT is of course more sophisticated than that, and it also ‘predicts’ the start of sentences, and ensures that whole documents are consistent. But the fundamental idea of predicting the next words in a sequence is still the same. (4/n)
— David Smerdon (@dsmerdon) January 27, 2023
No surprises there. But how does it choose the beginning of the title? It can’t scan papers themselves, but it can use website articles (inc. Wikipedia) that cite the titles of popular economics papers, and then use the words in the cited titles. (6/n)
— David Smerdon (@dsmerdon) January 27, 2023
So we get the stem “A Theory of Economic”.
— David Smerdon (@dsmerdon) January 27, 2023
What comes next? The most probable word to finish this title consistently, given the pool of cited economics papers and the adjective ‘economic’, is “History”.
(8/n)
Douglass North has been cited over 120,000 times according to Google Scholar, and his most cited work, the book Structure and change in economic history, bears similarity to chatGPT’s title.https://t.co/2MqkGftn7R
— David Smerdon (@dsmerdon) January 27, 2023
(10/n)
Douglass North had many co-authors, but his most cited work with a co-author was “The rise of the western world: A new economic history”, with Robert Thomas.
— David Smerdon (@dsmerdon) January 27, 2023
(12/n) pic.twitter.com/MaEg0tx1fc
Douglass North’s most-cited co-authored paper, "Constitutions and commitment: the evolution of institutions governing public choice in seventeenth-century England", was published in The Journal of Economic History in 1989. https://t.co/SI9H0KDl73
— David Smerdon (@dsmerdon) January 27, 2023
(14/n)
Douglass North became editor of The Journal of Economic History in 1960, and many website articles about the Nobel laureate reference this appointment. Combine this with his highly cited paper in 1989, and the choice is clear.
— David Smerdon (@dsmerdon) January 27, 2023
(16/n)
Douglass North published frequently in The Journal of Economic History from 1954-1992.
— David Smerdon (@dsmerdon) January 27, 2023
He was the journal’s editor until 1966.
The Nobel Committee cited his 1961 work as “Groundbreaking”, while his most cited work was in 1981.
(18/n)
Why exactly chatGPT chose 1969 is unclear, but to a human, it is as plausible a choice as any – as is the fake paper!
— David Smerdon (@dsmerdon) January 27, 2023
(19/19)
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