Daniel Rock

Asst. Prof. in OID @Wharton @Penn. Cofounder @workhelix. Everyone can just do stuff and that's {good, bad}. I study the economics of AI.

[Yo Shavit @yonashav]

The OpenAI national security policy team is hiring for my old job!

As the AI stakes get stratospheric, the technical nuances of policy become extremely important. This can be an incredibly positively impactful role for the right person. If you might be excellent at this, I’d love to answer your Qs.

[Jeff Dean @JeffDean]

This is great to see. The scientific community & the general public should be in the habit of celebrating amazing scientific achievements with standing ovations 🎉

[Avi Goldfarb @avicgoldfarb]

Deadline for NBER AI conference is June 4. Focus this year is AI in China. Details here: https://t.co/wVtvSaC9It.

[Daniel Rock @danielrock]

Agree 100%. My MBA students do great with a very aggressive reading load: reading is one of the critical pillars of the class.

[Alex Imas @alexolegimas]

This is not a mystery: because of grade inflation, many students don’t do the reading because they’re not incentivized to do the reading.

Students are just as smart and ambitious as they always have been, they’re just put in an environment where working hard isn’t explicitly rewarded. We are not cooked if faculty can reverse course (as many are already doing). Assign the readings, design the course to reward hard work and learning, and you’ll be amazed at the results.

[James Pethokoukis ⏩️⤴️ @JimPethokoukis]

"We have a vaccine that prevents shingles, a vaccine that markedly lowers the risk of dementia, and a vaccine that might even slow aging itself. Conveniently, these three vaccines are actually just one: the shingles vaccine. But fewer than half of eligible Americans have received the vaccine." https://t.co/VKyZMDHJdj

[James Cham @jamescham]

Justin McCarthy has been the farthest ahead in imagining and then actually building software factories. Glad that he’s sharing more now…

[Rod Wong, MD @docrodwong]

a standing ovation for daraxonrasib at asco. over 40k oncologists, entrepreneurs, investors, and patient advocates together celebrating revmed's breakthru in the fight against pancreatic cancer. u never forget these moments. it's what innovation is all about.

[Robert Inklaar @RobertInklaar]

Is Europe falling behind the US on productivity? The Krugman vs Aghion–Bergeaud–Garicano debate hinges on one choice: current vs constant PPPs. A new note maps the gap behind it — all 27 EU states, two data sources — and what it does and doesn't settle. 🧵

[Grant Stenger (hiring) @GrantStenger]

Local minima are rare in high dimensions because a strict local minimum has to curve upward in every direction, so all Hessian eigenvalues must be positive.

In a D-dimensional toy model where eigenvalue signs are independent, that’s a 2^(-D) event. In GOE-like random matrix models, positive definiteness is even rarer, roughly exp(-cD^2).

So as dimension grows, random critical points are much more likely to be saddles than minima. This is one reason high-dimensional optimization is often a saddle-escape problem, not a bad-local-minimum problem.

Wrote up some of the math here: https://t.co/vkaVqVD64N

[Daniel Rock @danielrock]

Fuck cancer LFG

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

This is actually insane.

97% of people taking the standard of care for metastatic solid tumor got worse by seven years.

But with lorlatinib, that number was only 45% in the same time!

This is an ENORMOUS jump in the quality of cancer care.

[Daniel Rock @danielrock]

New Star Wars was entertaining! On par with book of boba fett.

Lacked the brutality or gripping plot of Andor though. Or the world building from rebels/ahsoka.

It’s tough to build interest when shutting down storylines instead of expanding them.

[Daniel Rock @danielrock]

@sebkrier Get em

[cav empty @cavempty_]

was sleepy as hell on my drive to work and i couldn’t stop thinking about the brick method of driving

[Daniel Rock @danielrock]

@savage_acro @hamandcheese New Jim nickname just dropped

[Daniel Rock @danielrock]

@johnjhorton @jamescham @Peyman_Shahidi Can confirm

[Daniel Rock @danielrock]

@jamescham it's so good! @johnjhorton @Peyman_Shahidi (also tag coauthors)

[Daniel Rock @danielrock]

This really bums me out. Spent a lot of time in the library. The symbolism of it is absolutely terrible.

[Maureen Langloss @MaureenLangloss]

I have no connection to MIT, but hearing that they are shutting down 3 of their 4 libraries has me so so sad. I think it’s a decision they will live to regret & the symbolism of it is devastating.

[Daniel Rock @danielrock]

@alex_peys