ChinaEconTalk

What can $52bn for semiconductors actually accomplish? To discuss the tensions and tradeoffs underlying the decisions that the US government is about to make on how to spend this money, I have on today Jacob Feldgoise, an analyst at CSET and Vishnu Kannan, who works at the Carnegie Endowment. We'll be discussing their fantastic paper entitled: "The Limits of Reshoring and Next Steps for U.S. Semiconductor Policy."

Jacob and Vishnu's paper: https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/11/22/after-chips-act-limits-of-reshoring-and-next-steps-for-u.s.-semiconductor-policy-pub-88439

Subscribe to the ChinaTalk Newsletter!!!!: https://www.chinatalk.media/

Outtro Music: federal funding by Cake https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phHe6aNcocQ

Cover art: I fed midjourney a picasso portrait and told it 'semiconductor supply chain'

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As AI becomes increasingly sophisticated, we consider the question of whether there are limits to what computers can know and how this compares to human understanding.

Joining me on this episode is Sam Hammond, the director of social policy at the Niskanen Center, and Zohar Atkins, a rabbi and host of the podcast "Meditations with Zohar."

We discuss

Outro music: Genesis by Daniela Adrade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SJ6KNhA9QY

Check out the substack at chinatalk.media

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution makes his ChinaTalk debut!

We get into:

Outtro Music: Beethoven X, an AI-assisted version of Beethoven's unfinished 10th symphony https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rvj3Oblscqw

For more context: smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-artificial-intelligence-completed-beethovens-unfinished-10th-symphony-180978753/

Image by midjourney seeded with a photo of Tyler.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before we get back to the interviews, I read from the newsletter I run which you should subscribe to at https://www.chinatalk.media/

If you're interested in advertising on ChinaTalk, reach out at [email protected]!

Here's my year in review: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/chinatalks-year-in-review

Favorite books: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/a-year-in-books

Favorite everything else: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/2022-media-diet-tv-movies-chess-elden

Outtro music 忏悔录 by KKECHO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePC-FQwLnts The song apparently is her riffing off seeing the 50 Cent biopic

Image: I asked chatgpt to summarize my year in review post visually and it gave me the following prompt that I then fed into midjourney: "An abstract representation of the author's journey as a China analyst, such as a journey through a landscape. This painting could be done in a more impressionistic style, using loose brushstrokes and a muted palette of colors to convey a sense of movement and change.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe to the ChinaTalk newsletter! https://www.chinatalk.media/

Outtro music: Fred Again's Frank Ocean remix https://soundcloud.com/joseph-ibrahim/chanel-vs-a-new-error-frank-ocean-moderat-fred-again-mix

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe to my newsletter! https://www.chinatalk.media/

Doug O'Laughlin of Fabricated Knowledge and Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis go through our most important semis stories of 2022. We get into:

Outtro music: ChatGPT + PG One https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDvFGLSIU2c

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today US Department of Energy Secretary Granholm announced a nuclear fusion breakthrough at Livermore Labs. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to be getting commercially viable fusion reactors anytime soon.

Economist Eli Dourado wrote in a piece today: “Nuclear fusion has long been hailed as the next great energy source, capable of providing nearly limitless power without the harmful emissions and waste associated with other forms of energy generation. This week, the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced that it had achieved “ignition,” which occurs when the energy output from plasma in a fusion reactor exceeds the energy put into the plasma. With continued investment from government and the private sector, we are likely to see many such scientific milestones reached in the next few years.  

it is important to be wary. Many of these milestones have little bearing on the commercial viability of nuclear fusion. Despite the press releases, the National Ignition Facility conducts weapons tests, not clean-energy research. There is no realistic path from the kind of fusion being celebrated this week to any sort of commercial project. To a lesser extent, that may also be true of progress that we’re seeing in other fusion projects, even commercial ones.”

In the 1970s, many thought we were only a few years away from fusion, but here we are today still burning oil, gas and coal. To explore why, I wanted to repost a fantastic episode of a podcast from a friend of the show. Ben Reinhardt is the host of the Idea Machines podcast, a show that explores innovation systems from history and today. In this episode, Ben interviews Stephen Dean, who was present at the creation of America’s investment in fusion in the mid-70s and has been working in the space ever since. It’s a fascinating exploration of how government-funded science can fail us. Ben Reinhardt is also the creator of PARPA, a private sector DARPA aiming to “unlock robust technology to open new frontiers” which you can check out at parpa.org. This show was recorded in 2021.

Here's the link to the plan discussed in the podcast: https://fire.pppl.gov/us_fusion_plan_1976.pdf

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you get into chips? Doug O'Laughlin of Fabricated Knowledge and Jon Y of Asianometry run us through how to they came to

We also discuss

SIA job posting: https://www.semiconductors.org/sia-jobs/

Outro music: Still Alive by Johnathan Coulton, performed by Ellen McLain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ljFaKRTrI

Check out the substack: https://www.chinatalk.media

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ling Li, lecturer at the University of Vienna, comes on the pod to discuss:

Intro sounds: https://twitter.com/renminwansui5/status/1597064778543157250

Outtro sounds: https://twitter.com/whyyoutouzhele/status/1597225385728827392

Subscribe to ChinaTalk for an ad-free feed: https://chinatalk.substack.com/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I talk about where I think these protests are heading and what they mean for Covid Zero and the international situation.

First voice memo is from @wstv_lizzi and the second is from @lichtspektrum.

The outtro singing is protesters in Shanghai singing the Internationale.

Here's my essay on the topic in written form: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/chinas-protests-harbinger-or-passing

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices