There's your problem

 Much of it is behind a paywall, but this article at Nature is interesting:

A species of gut bacteria that proliferates as mice get older plays a part in the animals’ cognitive decline, a study finds1. Researchers determined that the bacterium interferes with signalling along sensory nerves connecting the gut to the brain.

Although the experiments were conducted in mice, the gut–brain circuit that the team identified “is likely conserved in humans”, says David Vauzour, a biochemist at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK. That would need to be confirmed, but if the circuit is present in humans, then this research could reveal a mechanism that explains why people’s memory and ability to learn naturally decreases with age — and offer hope that gut-targeted therapies could reverse the decline.

The effects of the bacteria, which dampens the gut–brain circuit in mice, seem similar to other consequences of ageing. “When we get older, we need things like glasses and hearing aids”, says co-author Christoph Thaiss, an immunologist at Stanford University in California. The study — published today in Nature1 — shows that, just as ageing causes a decline in sensory perception of the external world, it might also be causing a loss of perception of internal signals, too, he says. 

The experiment was done by putting young mice and old mice together: 

After a month of living in the same cage, the young mice began performing in a similar way to the old mice on a maze task and another memory test. In the latter test, mice usually remember objects that they’ve seen before and therefore spend more time exploring new objects. But the younger animals that had been housed with the old ones instead spent equal time investigating both familiar and new objects — just as their older counterparts did. This indicated that they had lost their short-term memory.

“Their deficit was so profound, they were basically undistinguishable from the old mice,” says co-author Timothy Cox, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “It was almost unbelievable.”

What had changed was that the young animals’ microbiomes had become similar to those of the older mice.

The next line is the reason for the title to this post:

By living near and eating each other’s faeces, mice can easily transmit their gut microbes to one another. The researchers suspected that one or more species of bacteria found in the gut of the old mice might be causing cognitive decline. 

In search of good news

I'm told that petrol is selling at $2.50 per litre, the highest price since I can't recall when.  Thanks, Donald.

Oh, so poor widdle Joe Rogan feels "betrayed" by Trump, does he?  Actually, he was betrayed by his own gullibility, given that there was every possible sign from his first term that Trump:

a.    talks BS continuously and no one can believe anything he says; and

b.    was completely in the pocket of Netanyahu.  

I haven't bothered reading in detail what Rogan said, but it would not surprise me at all if he pivoted to the pathetic, "I take no responsibility for my bad judgement - it's all Democrat's fault" line that I have seen surface on X (Kim Dotcom I think).  That is:  "if it weren't for Biden hanging on for so long and then Democrats running such a bad candidate, I wouldn't have voted for Trump, who seemed the better candidate."   It's ludicrous.  

Anyway - give me some good news, someone?   

I've done Google search, and asked Perplexity too - there are positive stories, of course.  But few that are grabbing my attention.  

Well, there is this:  A new study indicates that yo-yo dieting might actually be good for you.     

Oh, my Chinese AI Kimi tells me that the global suicide rate has fallen by 50% since 2000.  The source for that seems to be Our World in Data, but I can't find a graph confirming that.   However, it does seem there has been a big drop in China:

    All the more reason to continue my Chinamaxxing, I guess.  😄 

Anyway, Kimi has pointed me to a New Years article at El Pais (the Spanish newspaper I think) with a list of 44 ways in which the world has improved over the last few decades.  It's pretty impressive.  

There, AI did cheer me up.... 

Market manipulation is obvious

The spectacularly corrupt Trump administration is at it again:

 US official: ‘Not true’ Navy successfully escorted oil tanker through Strait of Hormuz

Energy Secretary Chris Wright claimed in a now-deleted social media post that the Navy escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz. 

Further down:

In the now-deleted post, which appeared briefly on his official account, Wright said the Navy “successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets.” The post was accompanied by a video of Wright’s remarks in Colorado on Monday, in which he referenced a tanker passing through the Strait but did not mention naval escorts.

Oil prices, which had been falling after President Donald Trump said Monday the U.S.-Israel war with Iran is “very complete,” dropped further on Wright’s announcement. Prices had risen to nearly $120 late Sunday after Iran started striking oil tankers traversing the Hormuz and Iraq and Kuwait started shutting in oil production.  

And:

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, seized on Wright’s post to accuse the U.S. of market manipulation.

“U.S. officials are posting fake news to manipulate markets,” Araghchi wrote on X. “It won’t protect them from inflationary tsunami they’ve imposed on Americans.” 

Lots and lots of people would agree with the Iranian on that issue.... 

One suspects some heated arguments are happening in Washington

Two stories at Axios.  First:

The U.S. and Israel have discussed sending special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium at a later stage of the war, according to four sources with knowledge of the discussions.

Why it matters: Preventing Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon is one of President Trump's stated war objectives. The regime's 450 kilograms of 60%-enriched uranium — convertible to weapons grade within weeks — is one key to that goal.

The big picture: Any operation to seize the material would likely require U.S. or Israeli troops on Iranian soil, navigating heavily fortified underground facilities in the middle of a war.

• It remains unclear whether it would be an American, Israeli or joint mission.
• It would likely only take place after both countries are confident Iran's military can no longer mount a serious threat to the forces involved.

Behind the scenes: At a congressional briefing Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked whether Iran's enriched uranium would be secured. "People are going to have to go and get it," he said, without specifying who.

 Hard to imagine that going all that smoothly!

The other story:

Israel's strikes on 30 Iranian fuel depots Saturday went far beyond what the U.S. expected when Israel notified it in advance, sparking the first significant disagreement between the allies since the war began eight days ago, according to a U.S. official, Israeli official and a source with knowledge.

Why it matters: The U.S. is concerned Israeli strikes on infrastructure that serves ordinary Iranians could backfire strategically, rallying Iranian society to support the regime and driving up oil prices.

It would seem there's a good chance that Trump feels a bit trapped - he presumably doesn't want to be blamed for rising oil prices and Americans in danger in the Middle East, and may be legitimately wary of being able to "sell" to his base the need for boots on the ground in Iran.   However, he has Netanyahu to try to keep happy, too.   

 

Let them fight...

Headline in The Guardian: 

‘You unbelievable coward’: conservative US media in open warfare over Iran

Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin are all trading blows over US involvement – while Sean Hannity says he’s staying out of it 

Of course it's illegal

Here's a New York Times article that didn't seem to hang around getting highlighted for long:  

The Legality, or Illegality, of Killing a Foreign Leader, Explained

We also have Iranian ships being sunk thousands of kilometres away, which makes the "it's not a war, just a combat operation" argument pretty laughable.   

 

What I don't understand is Trumpian supporters not getting that the "good guys" aren't supposed to join in with what the bad guys shouldn't be doing.     

 

Update:  More "of course it's illegal":  Trump administration waging illegal war on Iran, experts say

Chinese New Year pop music perfection

It may be heavy on advertising the corporate sponsors, but still:  this is the most pleasing (and simultaneously touching) pop music video I have seen for years.  The trio is from Malaysia, and I have never heard of them before, but the algorithm knew I would like it:

 

Update:    This song makes me unreasonably happy, and after watching the "making of" video and a question and answer with the band, and watching the song video itself a dozen times this week, I understand better how! 

The song's climax has both a choir and strings joining in to boost it - something that isn't immediately obvious on first listening, when one is distracted by the high energy dancing and editing.   The whole video also features the trio ageing backwards - the first shot is from the point of view of the young kids who are at the table at the end shot.   It's such a nice framing device.

As for the band - they started as street dancers, and formed the band in 2017 and now seem to enjoy reasonable success in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.  Would seem that they are trying to break into Taiwan, but without much success there yet.    They look a bit like a wannabe boy hip-hop-ish band, but without the super manufactured rich "smooth" looks of a Korean or Taiwanese band.  (It also seems they are probably over 30 now, which works against them.)   One of them said that he liked wearing that aged make up in this song because it meant they didn't have to "act handsome", which can be hard work.

Interestingly, they re-worked the song into one for the Malaysian Muslim population - using the same tune but with lyrics that are in Malay language, and referring to Hari Raya, the Muslim festival at the end of Ramadan.   They also dressed in more traditional Malay gear, covering their tattoos.   It seems it was well received:  no issues with "cultural appropriation" it seems!

 

 

   

Some glass

These photos are from the Toyama Glass Art Museum, which is in a lovely new-ish library and gallery building and (oddly) seems to have been created without Toyama having any particular historical connection to glass making.   [Update:  I have since read that it was known for making glass medicinal bottles - which ties in with the cities reputation for old style medicine manufacturing, about which I might one day post.  But still, medicine bottles are not exactly art...] 

Anyway, they were having an exhibition of French art nouveau glassware from around the start of the 20th century, and many pieces were very intricate and lovely.

The photos are the end are actually huge glass installations by an American glass artist.  The photo of the boat full of glass balls lacks anything to scale it by, but it's probably about 7 or 8m long.  

 

The room may be free, but...

So, Dubai has told hotels not to throw out guests who are stranded in the country:

Authorities in Dubai and Abu Dhabi have directed hotels to extend stays for guests unable to depart due to current exceptional circumstances, in a coordinated move to protect international visitors affected by travel disruptions. 

The directives require hotels to prioritise guest welfare, ensure accommodation continuity, and avoid asking travellers to vacate rooms if they cannot leave the country or immediately cover extension costs. 

I think the suggestion is that the government will foot the bill for the extended stays, actually.

That's nice of them, but still.  I can imagine having very light sleep if (as is typical) I was in a hotel room there with huge glass windows and no other room (away from the windows) to rest in. 

I would guess, too, that there may be some cheap holidays on offer after this has settled down.   (I'm a little curious to see it, but not at all sure how much I would like it.)  

Watching a man ramble through South East Asia

Have I mentioned before watching the Youtube channel of the Australian travel vlogger who calls himself Fiasco da Gama?  Maybe, but I thought I would mention him again.

It's not like every video is brilliant, and I guess he is sooner or later going to run out of things to talk about, but the simple format of watching a not particularly photogenic Australian man in (I think) his 50's wandering around streets in Asia talking to his camera and the locals is more charming than you might expect.  

I don't think he has ever explained how he has managed to live like this, financially.  He once explained that he worked in Australia until (if I recall correctly) his early 30's, then gave that up to spend the rest of his life wandering through South East Asia (and further a field into Asia) on a shoestring budget.  He has spent most of his time in Bali and Indonesia, it seems, and has explained how he was once engaged to a Balinese woman and lived with her in her village, but gave up on the relationship as he felt somewhat isolated and not able to fully engage in village life.  I suspect that maybe he had an inheritance that was enough to set him off on such a wandering lifestyle?  If so, his economical ways have certainly made the money last.

He has never married or had children, but has made it clear that he is straight.  (He felt prompted to address that as he said some commenters have told him he's gives off a "not very masculine" vibe - which is odd given his bushy beard and general demeanour.  I think, though, that what causes some people to think that may be his high degree of empathy with people, which is generally regarded as a more typically feminine personality trait than masculine.)   He often comments about he loves wandering around where ever he wants, often changing his mind at short notice as to where to go on any particular day,  which means he is happiest travelling without a companion, most of whom would want more certainty.  Yet he has spent so many years doing this, he clearly has a network of friends who he drops in on from time to time. 

This is not the sort of lifestyle I could enjoy long term, I'm sure; but it clearly has suited him and he is generally so positive and respectful of others as a traveller, there is certainly nothing to criticise about his chosen life. 

He speaks some Indonesian, which means he can interact with the locals more than the average vlogger.  

His most recent videos show him making his way via train across Java from its Eastern tip, stopping in towns that are certainly not on the tourist track and just wandering around, looking for somewhere to stay and eat.  And, of course, interacting with locals on the street, who are nearly always happy to talk to him and don't mind being on video.   

Given my short holiday last year in which I caught the train from Jakarta to Yogyakarta, the recent videos have reminded of a couple of things that I reckon are underappreciated:

*    the Indonesian train system, at least on Java, is really, really good.   Modern, comfortable trains;  modestly priced; clean and full of nice staff.  (It seems it has been a while since Fiasco did a lot of travel using them, too, since he has commented in these recent videos that the trains and stations are so much nicer than they ever used to be.)

*   the Indonesian people are very friendly and welcoming, and often quite charming and attractive, too.  Given that the country has significant problems, and Jakarta is a high security city that clearly still worries about terrorism, this was something that I wasn't quite expecting until I got there. But you really do feel, when you see how this older Australian is welcomed on the back streets of virtually any Indonesian city or town, there are a lot of good and welcoming people in Indonesia.  (It helps moderate the impression of Islam, too, to a significant degree.)    

So yeah, I think this guy is a pretty good vlogger, and gives off a likeable personality.  Worth watching, for a while, anyway... 

  

I miss the old way of doing wars...

For all of the stupid brinkmanship that led to War World 2 and other conflicts in the past, at least the old fashioned thing of declaring wars and then fighting them had a clarity which the world decided to walk away from in the second part of the 20th century.   Hence we now have to "law of armed conflict" instead of the "law of war", and countries like the US and Israel deciding that going for international assassination is the way to get countries to change course.  

I mean, if this is the standard now, just how upset should MAGA Americans be if an Iranian secret agent did manage to kill Trump?   Their beloved leader, after all, partook in assassination without giving any clear warning, so seems to me the moral upset should be quite diluted.  

Yet, it's also true that Iran has been such an international trouble maker for so many decades that we are now forced to watch somewhat embarrassing endorsements of Trump's actions by Western leaders who, surely, in private, are likely to be regretting having to going along with this.  Albanese has got the burden of AUKUS around his neck, too, giving him all the more motive not to upset the apple cart of US co-operation to get new submarines.   

A couple of academics at the not-so-illustrious University of the Sunshine Coast are right, though:

We should be dismayed by the worrying acceptance of increased brazen illegality by Western leaders, including our own prime minister. Anthony Albanese has supported the strikes as “acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon”. This places Australia, once again, in open contradiction with basic principles of liberal international order.

They earlier wrote:

Trump said the attacks were intended to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program and bring about regime change. Trump urged Iranians to “take over your government”, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the goal was to “remove the existential threat posed by the terrorist regime in Iran”.

Forcible regime change violates the foundational principles of state sovereignty and non-intervention under the UN Charter.

The strikes targeted Iran’s supreme leader, president, and military chief of staff, as well as military infrastructure. Deliberately targeting heads of state also crosses a threshold that distinguishes military operations from acts of aggression.

Attacking heads of state is illegal under New York Convention, for obvious reasons of stability. With the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the power vacuum will only increase the hardship on the ground for Iranians.

Now, who knows:  it may be that everything will go relatively well, and we soon see the rapid, relatively bloodless, end of a regime that only Putin is likely to think is a pity to see gone.    

But really, does that seem likely given the history of the region in the last 70 odd years?  I doubt it.    

Update:  there is a good summary at Axios about the lead up to this - although you have to subscribe to a newsletter to get to it.

What's clear is that the attack only makes sense if Trump's previous attack on nuclear facilities was not the success he claimed:

Behind the scenes: Before and during the talks, U.S. officials said intelligence made clear Iran was already rebuilding the nuclear facilities that Trump claimed were "obliterated" in Operation Midnight Hammer last June.

• When Kushner and Witkoff asked for a concrete proposal, the Iranians produced a seven-page document outlining enrichment needs they claimed were for civilian purposes.
• Trump's team checked the numbers with the UN's nuclear watchdog. "This would result in enrichment capability roughly five times more than laid out in the [2015 nuclear deal]," one official said.

Officials also said Iran had been secretly stockpiling enriched material at the Tehran Research Reactor under the guise of medical research.

• "Never once did they use any of the fissionable material there to make even a single medicine," one official said. "It was all designed to deceive."

Reality check: This account is based largely on statements by U.S. and allied officials in the aftermath of the strikes, and could not immediately be verified by independent sources.

It's also clear that he is utterly in Netanyahu's pocket.   (Trump and his family also being financially tied to Arab money is another factor.  The Washington Post in particular has been reporting that Saudi Arabia encouraged the attack.)   

Time for some Kantian thinking and excitement

I've been thinking about Kant again, for a few reasons:

1.    I've been reading a novel The Thing Itself (which I only found via watching an English guy on Youtube who talks about science fiction), and it's explicitly based on an elaboration of one of Kant's key ideas - transcendental idealism.   The brief summary of that is:

In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant argues that space and time are merely formal features of how we perceive objects, not things in themselves that exist independently of us, or properties or relations among them. Objects in space and time are said to be “appearances”, and he argues that we know nothing of substance about the things in themselves of which they are appearances. Kant calls this doctrine (or set of doctrines) “transcendental idealism”, and ever since the publication of the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781, Kant’s readers have wondered, and debated, what exactly transcendental idealism is, and have developed quite different interpretations.  

 How have I found the novel?  Pretty good, actually.  A science fictiony/mild horror intriguing read, but I would say it is not for everyone, in that the author Adam Roberts tries various stylistic things (with some  chapters written in old or futuristic English, for example), and from comments on Reddit, it seems some have found that a bit jarring.

But the basic concept is fine.  And it features AI in a way that seems more relevant now than when it was written a few years ago.

I haven't finished it yet, but I doubt the whole can be ruined in the last quarter. 

2.    I have tried asking a couple of AI services about Kant, and been given some interesting food for thought.

For example, I didn't realise (until reading an article that AI led me to) how much Russia* (including Putin!) likes to claim Kant as their own.   I don't recall reading about this controversy in 2024, the year in which there were a lot of "happy 300th year birthday" conferences on Kant, but here we go:

NEW DELHI: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has openly criticiz ..

Read more at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/109561696.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Putin’s war of aggression contradicts all of Kant’s fundamental statements, said the Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz in a speech on the occasion of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences' ceremony to mark Kant’s 300th birthday, on April 22.

“Putin doesn’t have the slightest right to quote Kant […] Nevertheless, Putin’s regime remains committed to appropriating Kant and his work at almost any cost,” said Scholz.

 The big problem:

The congress opened with Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko reading a message from President Putin, after which all participants rose for the national anthem. In the message Putin said that Kant’s call for using one’s own reason (sapere aude) in Russia’s case meant to be guided by its national interests.

Ha!  Anyone who has the slightest knowledge of Kant would know that this is ridiculous.

By the way, look at how many places held events about him - 

Key conferences and events for the 300th Anniversary (2024):

• 14th International Kant Congress (Bonn, Germany): September 8-13, 2024. Theme: "Kant's Project of Enlightenment".
• World Concept of Philosophy (Kaliningrad, Russia): April 2024. Focused on Kant's birthplace and legacy.
• International Conference "Kant 300" (Online/Global): April 22-26, 2024.
• "The Young Kant" (Evanston, USA): May 23-25, 2024, at Northwestern University.
• "Critical Philosophy for Cosmopolitan Justice and Perpetual Peace" (Lisbon, Portugal): September 17-19, 2024.
• Kant 300 (Latvia): International conference by National Library of Latvia and University of Mainz (Feb-Nov 2024).
• Kant 300 (Vietnam): Van Lang University (July 2024).

What a guy!

And why don't more people know a bit more about him?

3.    I also asked an AI (Claude) as to what it thought about an idea I've had for ages (and which I have mentioned here before) that a novel or movie which revealed the secret life of  Kant as a Prussian secret agent (instead of a virginal, overly intellectual, routine obsessed, academic) could be fun.   And of course, being an LLM type AI, designed to keep me happy, Claude thought it a great idea.  It also made many suggestions as to how aspects of his life and times could be used, and proposed a broad outline.

The only problem is (see point 2) - no one in the public knows anything about him.   I suppose that didn't stop Amadeus being a hit, even though most people knew nothing of Mozart's odd life and scatological sense of humour.    

The other thing is that there is apparently extremely little in the way of personal diaries or letters from him that give much of an insight into his character.

But then, AI might also have helped (a different one - Deepseek) in that it has referred me to a 2025 book that I am sure will be a top seller (haha):  "Portraits of Kant: Refletions from 18th and 19th Century Europe":

Yes!  Three volumes!  Only $553....😕

Someone has put online some introductory extracts, including this from the preface:

 Hey, I just mentioned Amadeus, and now I find Kant had a real life "bitter opponent"!   

Maybe I have to re-jig my ideas for a fictional treatment....

Anyway:  I think there's a good chance I'm one of a mere handful of people in my entire country who is (kind of) excited to see Kant is still being talked about in such detail.   (I get the feeling Australian philosophy departments may mainly be more into the modern, less satisfying, stuff.)

Do I dare look into Anna's Archive for this recent book that I can ill afford?  Kant would be very against me doing that, I'm sure.   So I should not...

 

*  His home city Konigsberg was Prussian at the time, but underwent a period of Russian occupation while Kant was alive, only to later be permanently made part of Russia and turning into Kaliningrad.

Creeping myself out by getting an AI to describe a photo

Just because I am curious about different AI capabilities, I was looking around at some of the lesser discussed ones (in the mainstream media, at least) and ended up trying Kimi, a Chinese based open source service which seems to be getting favourable comments online by the tech people who make a living by talking about AI.   

I am just doing a free trial at the moment, and I am not even sure if I can continue using it for free after that.  (It is, though, one of the cheapest models to pay for, if I am inclined.)   

Yesterday I tried it on describing a photo, as it seems to sell itself as being very good at dealing with visual stuff.

I uploaded this photo (which appeared in a recent post):

and got this description:

This is a beautiful winter photograph of a traditional Japanese temple or shrine blanketed in snow.

 

Main Subject

 

The central focus is a two-story wooden temple building with classic Japanese architectural features:

 

Curved, tiled roofs with upturned eaves (karahafu style)

 

Dark wooden beams and structure with intricate joinery visible under the eaves

 

Snow-covered roof creating a striking contrast against the dark wood

 

An open entrance on the ground floor revealing a dark interior with what appears to be a small orange/red offering or light inside

 

Setting & Atmosphere

 

Snow-covered stone pathway leads directly to the temple entrance, creating strong leading lines and symmetry

 

Deep snow banks line both sides of the pathway

 

Stone lanterns (tōrō) flank the entrance, also dusted with snow

 

Snow-laden trees visible in the background, suggesting a forested or garden setting

 

Overcast, pale sky giving the scene a serene, muted atmosphere

 

Composition

 

The photo uses central symmetry with the pathway drawing the eye straight to the temple entrance. The cool color palette of whites, grays, and dark browns creates a peaceful, contemplative winter mood. The wet stone path suggests recent snowfall or melting, adding texture and subtle reflections.

This appears to be a well-known temple, possibly in Kyoto or another historic Japanese city, captured during a quiet winter moment.

I don't know - if it had just said "looks like a temple, probably in Japan" it wouldn't have struck me as anything too special.  But the detail in that description is what freaks me out, a little....

(I subsequently talked to it about the exact name of the temple, and asked whether it could train itself on our conversations, so that it might recognize the specific temple if another person ever uploads a photo of it.  It said no, it doesn't train on conversations, and doesn't remember them, unless I ask it to for my own account.  So each conversation is "fresh".  I guess that's a good thing?) 

A word about appearances

After many years of not fiddling with the blog's appearance, I have spent a few days changing the details, with questionable results.

Google hasn't had much interest in blogger as a platform for years and years, and so the ways in which you can change themes and layouts hasn't changed for ages.   It seems to me to now be a bit buggy, too:  certain changes make certain things disappear and I can't work out why it's happening.

The end result I think looks good on a desktop; but the theme changes on mobile version have it look unduly pink! But changing to other colours is making the blog title turn white.

I'm not I can be bothered looking at the HTML to work out what is going on.  Maybe I should ask an AI service to look at it for me!  (If the blog disappears, you will know why...) 

Economists, hey?

The Washington Post has an article that says there is now some debate over the basic question of whether the US economy has only grown because of massive AI spending.   Some economist apparently say it hasn't contributed at all - which sounds rather implausible.   

It’s clear that the huge spending on AI is adding to the U.S. economy, but the available economic data doesn’t neatly capture its effects. The debating economists and the slippery data suggest that if the technology does start to reshape the economy, it may be challenging to detect and clearly measure. That may leave political and corporate leaders to choose the numbers that fit their preferred narratives on how AI is changing American life and work.

The struggle to even measure what is happening today suggests there may be years of bickering ahead over whether AI is creating a golden age of prosperity or a path to mass unemployment and impoverishment.

The high-stakes quibbling over AI’s current economic impact largely hinges on how to account for the foreign-made computing equipment and components inside the expensive data centers that AI companies are building across the nation.

Economists who argue that AI’s contribution to U.S. growth is overstated calculate that much of the money spent to equip AI data centers drags down economic growth rather than boosting it. 

That’s because the $31 trillion in yearly U.S. gross domestic product, the widest measure of the economy, tallies only the final value of products and services produced domestically. Spending on imports and foreign made components is subtracted because it boosts the economies of other countries, not that of the United States.

If a U.S. store paid $500 for a sofa made in China and sells it for $1,000, U.S. GDP mostly records the $500 difference, said Hannah Rubinton, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The sale of a $50,000 American-made truck with $10,000 worth of foreign parts counts as a $40,000 lift to the U.S. economy.

Roughly three-quarters of the cost of an AI data center is for the computer gear and parts such as computer chips that go inside of it, technology analysts estimate. America’s AI champions, including the computer chip pioneer Nvidia, manufacture many of their products in Asia — despite efforts by the Biden and Trump administrations to reduce U.S. dependence on essential chips made overseas.

Other economists say the contrarians are too pedantic and looking too narrowly at AI’s contribution to the economy. And some forecasters say that the U.S. government’s economic data is a poor measure of the impact of AI and that alternative calculations show the current boom is an even bigger boost to economic growth.

But even some of those not in the AI-zero camp agree that the narrative of the technology propping up the economy was overblown.