Assertion Supported
Smith: US factory construction boomed under Biden after decades of stagnation
“But when you look at factory construction, real, real factory construction, you saw this enormous, you saw it basically flat at a flat level for decades and decades at a fairly low level. Then you saw this enormous boom during the Biden years and all the facto…”
Opinion
Smith: Elon Musk is the only entrepreneur to scale US manufacturing
“Who's the only entrepreneur who's been able to successfully scale manufacturing in America, you know, even in the face of international competition, and it's been pretty credible because his supply chains are far more domestically sourced than most manufacture…”
Assertion Partly supported
Noah Smith: Smartphone technology is driving global fertility far below replacement
“Phones have destroyed the human race. Like, the fertility crash that's happening all around the world. Nobody has replacement level fertility. Fertility is going far below replacement everywhere because of technology.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Noah Smith: AI companionship will cause human population to continually dwindle
“The human race does not have a desire, a collective desire to perpetuate itself. We can, you know, yes, we're going to get lonely, but we'll have company through AI and through the internet. Social media, you know, until there's just a few of us and we dwindle…”
Opinion
Noah Smith: Most of Leopold Aschenbrenner's AI predictions have been proven wrong
“I would say that already most of the things he predicted have been invalidated or made irrelevant in the last year and a half, like, and especially in terms, like all the comp stuff about competition with China you know, like it turns out filtration was able t…”
Opinion
Smith: Tariff threats against Japan and Europe ultimately help China win
“Hurting Japan and Europe more than we hurt ourselves, but hurting both of us actually just lets China win. So it doesn't seem like a credible threat to me.”
Assertion Partly supported
Smith: AI outperforms human doctors on many medical diagnoses
“AI is, is better for diagnosis on a lot of things than humans, right?”
Assertion Supported
Smith: Radiologist wages and employment rose after Hinton's automation prediction
“You also got Jeffrey Hinton's prediction that radiologists would be unemployed within a certain time frame, and by that time, radiologist wages were higher than ever, and employment was higher than ever.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Noah Smith: AI Economy Will Fundamentally Redefine GDP Beyond Human Labor
“We're envisioning a radical shift of what GDP means to a sort of Internal pricing that a few overlords set for the things that their AI agents want to do, and that's incredibly different than what we'call GDP in the past.”
Assertion Partly supported
Smith: Chinese subsidies force BYD to rely on supplier loans
“We're seeing BYD having to take loans from its suppliers just to stay financially afloat, even though it's the best car company in the world because the Chinese government has paid A million other car companies to compete with BYD.”
Insight
Smith: Consumer Gains From Foreign Trade And Automation Are Functionally Identical
“In fact, in economic models, the gains from trade will look just like productivity. And there's a complete equivalence between those and a lot of models. So basically, if you have a robot to do something cheaply, you know, from the consumer's perspective, that…”
Assertion Supported
Smith: China Shock Displaced US Manufacturing Workers Into Low-Wage Service Jobs
“What Otter, Dorn, and Hansen found is that the adjustment of the average worker in competition with Chinese workers was much, much slower and worse, and they found that, you know, the average displaced manufacturing worker in the eighties and nineties who was …”
Assertion Supported
Smith: US Manufacturing Jobs Plunged After China Entered WTO In 2000
“Total manufacturing employment has shrunk since 2000 dramatically. So at the exact same time trying to enter the WTO, total manufacturing employment in the United States, which had been at a stable level for decades and decades, starts to plunge.”
Assertion Partly supported
Smith: The China Trade Shock Is Over As Labor Costs Equalize
“The China shock is over. China unit labor costs are now at parity with the United States labor cost, and there is nothing on the horizon that looks anything like China.”
Opinion
Smith: Gross trade volume matters more than trade deficits
“People focus Obsessively on the trade deficits and surpluses, on the imbalances, on the net amount, but basically the more important effect is the gross, the total amount of exporting that we're able to do, you know, and so in that sense, trade between us and …”
Assertion Partly supported
Smith: Germany and South Korea maintain manufacturing despite demographic decline
“Observing countries like Germany and South Korea, where the manufacturing share of industry has remained remarkably high. So I see them with extremely low fertility rates, low rates of family formation, you know, skyrocketing divorce rates, and you know in Kor…”
Assertion Partly supported
Smith: US manufacturing indicators slumped following Trump tariff announcements
“Since Trump announced his quote unquote liberation day tariffs, we've seen deterioration in manufacturing PMIs purchasing orders you know, investment plans. Every indication of manufacturing you've had is slumping now and notably beginning directly after Trump…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Smith: US should have used tariffs against China's 2000s currency undervaluation
“For example, if you had used tariffs as a kind of bargaining tool to force China to stop undervaluing the Yuan, which it did to a significant degree in the 2000. That might've worked. In fact, I think we should have done that.”
Assertion Supported
Smith: Shrinking trade deficits coincided with flatlining US manufacturing productivity
“Our trade deficit shrank enormously after 2008. However, that is when our manufacturing productivity flatlined, ok? And that is when our industrial output flatlined, is after 2008.”
Assertion Supported
Smith: US industrial production grew during China shock despite job losses
“During the China shock when our manufacturing employment fell, our industrial production actually rose a bit.”
Opinion
Smith: US tariffs on China should target strategic industries, not clothing
“Not, not all the tariffs on, I would say strategic industries with China. I don't think we, you know, need tariffs on Chinese clothes because if China makes clothes, that's not a national security threat to us.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Smith: Every historical technology has complemented rather than replaced humans
“Every other tool that's ever been made, every other technological tool was a compliment to humans.”
Opinion
Noah Smith: AI reasoning models hallucinate endlessly and gaslight users
“I mean, the reasoning models still go off in these crazy hallucinations that they'll never, like, admit were wrong, and will just, like, gaslight you infinitely on some crap it made up. Like, they'll still, like, just knowing truth from falsehood.”
Insight
Smith: Economists Focus on Equilibrium While Ignoring Transition Paths
“Economists often think to the very end and think about equilibrium and ignore the path for how you get there.”
