So in your view, what is it that agentic AI as it exists right now can do? Like what are the kinds of tasks that it can do better than human beings and how can it improve the workflow of an average social scientist?

scientist?Mm-hmm.

I mean, coding is the first thing.

It's literally in the name Claude Code, right? And, uh, that's what those tools were designed for, right? And so I think if you talk to any coding person, like a computer scientist or even not a computer scientist who does a lot of coding for their work, I don't think anyone would doubt that it's a huge productivity improvement tool, right? And I think the vast majority of quantitative social scientists who do any kind of analysis of data, I think they do a lot of coding, so they have to be very receptive to this by definition.

And I think they often are.

I think what happens is that like a lot of social scientists, they're comprised of a bunch of different tasks that people do and topics that people can disagree over, right? Depending on the field, so economics is pretty homogeneously quantitative and formal, right? So I feel like there you can definitely see the biggest uptake of those tools, right? But a lot of disciplines like political science or sociology, right, they're a mix of qualitative and quantitative folks.

And I think a lot of this kind of AI polarization kind of overlapped with those preexisting, uh, divides that we had, right? So people basically who didn't like stats, who didn't believe positivism or whatever, you know, the idea that you can like learn something about the social world using evidence, right? They also were less...

My understanding is you don't have that view, Alex, so what's, what's your view of things?

Why do you think it's important that we be selective, particularly for economic contribution?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I, I do.

I think that it's less controversial now than it was a couple of years ago because I think, again, with Trump getting reelected again, I think a lot of people are eager to actually find compromises and, like, actually figure out how to make system better.

Because I do think that in the end of the day, the most unfair immigration system is the one that is completely closed and doesn't allow anyone, right? So to the extent that you make sure that at least some people can benefit and contribute, I would say you don't have to be a complete consequentialist to think that it's a much preferable system to this, you know, a completely closed system, right? Um, I think the reason why selective immigration policies are important because those are the policies that are most beneficial, right? Because again, it's very easy to explain to people why we need doctors and engineers, right? And that's why I think the Canadian system is so popular among folks is because, like, it is very, very transparent, right? It's not just, you know, people, they overemphasize the importance of this kind of point-based, um, system that they have, the idea.

It doesn't have to be about points, right? But the general kinda thrust of the system where, you know, you just have people who are more likely to come, to contribute, to be integrated, to pay taxes, and not be, um, a welfare burden.

Uh, what has to happen for us to get there? You've talked about some of it, but if, if we are gonna get to a reasonable, consistent immigration policy that most Americans, not the extremes, but most Americans think is sane and under control, what has to happen?