Tag Archives: research and development

January 2026 in Review

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Well, I seemed to be in a political mood in January. I try to stay on the policy side of the line, but that is hard when bad politics makes good policy impossible. Inspired by a Nate Silver post, I took a look back at what I see as key moments in the last 25 years of U.S. history, and there were just so many that were on a knife edge and ended up going the wrong way, in my view. Maybe there are other universes where things went better, but remember my scientific theory that once they make a Spiderman movie about a scientific theory, it is almost certainly wrong. I find it depressing how we got here, but there is no sense crying over it. We need to learn from the past yes, but then face up to the present moment and start picking up the pieces from where we are.

Most frightening and/or depressing story: Evidence is crystal clear that sabotaging R&D spending is a very effective way to sabotage economic growth and progress. Attaboy to the fools, assholes and traitors currently in nominal charge of the U.S. government. Meanwhile, if a more rational administration ever takes hold, research on learning curves might provide some clues on where to concentrate our efforts for the greatest gains.

Most hopeful story: New York City congestion pricing was a hard-won U.S. transportation policy win in 2025. This is just good, economically sound urban policy that would be apolitical in a more rational world.

Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: I reviewed book reviews from 2025, one of which was Ezra Klein’s Abundance (not the 2012 book Abundance by Peter Diamandis, which while I am not a huge fan I continue to be puzzled how Ezra Klein could either not be aware of that book or intentionally choose to name his book the same thing.) I still find it hard to summarize that book in a sound bite, which would need to be done if it were ever going to serve as the basis for a political campaign. But here is an attempt: (1) Continuously review and streamline federal regulations, (2) increase public and private investments in critical technology and infrastructure, including recommitting to clean energy, and (3) address market failures in housing, health care, and education. #3 is a doozy of course, but the un-sexy answer just has to be understand and implement the latest evidence-backed policies. I would think ramp up housing supply, Medicare for All, and free (tax-funded) college or trade school for all. And um, if we want a chance for any domestic agenda to succeed, we also need serious plans to manage international risks including war, ecosystem collapse, famine, and massive refugee flows that may be coming. Now, I just want to acknowledge that there is a rosy future scenario where AI magically solves all these problems. The way that could work is that technological progress and economic growth suddenly pick up so drastically that we are awash in cash and resources to the point that even the wildly suboptimal operations of our dysfunctional political system are adequate to solve the problems. I don’t think it is safe to put all our eggs in that basket! We better assume that we will need to continue doing the hard work of allocating scarce resources to manage difficult problems for the foreseeable future.

evidence for the return on (U.S.) government non-defense R&D

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This 2024 report from the Dallas Fed provides very clear evidence of the positive returns from past U.S. government research and development funding.

Total factor productivity is a noisy but generally accepted measure of the amount of GDP/productivity growth that is due to innovation rather than increases in inputs. Summary: The return CAUSED BY non-defense R&D spending is 140-210% over 8-12 years, which is higher than investments in infrastructure (which still provide a positive return) and defense R&D (NO CAUSAL EFFECT IDENTIFIED).

Since it’s noisy, maybe I would smooth it in the graph above, but nonetheless there is a very clear relationship between falling R&D spending and falling economic growth. Conversely, if you wanted to intentionally reduce growth and innovation in our economy, a good way to do that would be to reduce R&D spending. Another implication is that if R&D spending on weapons and war does NOT provide as great benefits, there is an opportunity cost to spending your R&D money on weapons and war rather than peaceful or at least dual-use technologies. So it’s pretty clear the actions of the current US administration (drastically cutting R&D spending and shifting it from civilian to military applications) do not match their stated intentions to boost economic growth.

the US “R&D ecosystem”

This article from “chinatalk.media” (which I know nothing about) explains how the US R&D pipeline has always been a partnership between universities, the private sector (including, in some cases, closely regulated monopolies like Bell Labs), and the government. It has been the envy of the world and emulated by others, including by China. Basically, the federal government funds basic research through universities that there is not a clear market for yet. In some cases, it creates a market through its procurement ability which incentivizes the private sector to take the risk of taking nascent scientific breakthroughs from the universities and bring them to market.

To better understand today’s landscape, we need to trace our steps back about 70 years and examine how the American research ecosystem was conceptualized. The original model positioned universities to conduct curiosity-driven research funded by the federal government, while American industry focused on transforming that research into applications.

There were certain industrial monopolies created by the government that also conducted basic research, which Alex can address more comprehensively. However, the overwhelming majority of basic research happened in academia — universities created as land-grant institutions or those existing before the war. This system served us remarkably well, as basic research developments from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s bore fruit 10, 20, 30, or 40 years later. The nature of basic research doesn’t necessarily have an immediate application, but applications may emerge years down the line.

Agencies like the National Institutes of Health fund more applied research on medicines and can point to tangible outcomes — specific drugs developed with NIH funding. The NSF, conversely, funds basic research that may not demonstrate tangible benefits for decades, as happened with neural networks.

What madman claiming to love our country would try to break this? He would have to be either extremely ignorant or a traitor to our country.

ASPI Critical Technology Tracker

Something called the Australian Strategic Policy Institute tracks and forecasts which countries in the world are leading on what it considers the most critical technologies. Their definition of critical seems to be mostly technologies with military applications: “defence, space, energy, the environment, artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, robotics, cyber, computing, advanced materials and key quantum technology areas”. And their metrics seem to be based largely on number of scientific publications and patents. This approach can be critiqued, but nonetheless the results are interesting and striking.

These new results reveal the stunning shift in research leadership over the past two decades towards large economies in the Indo-Pacific, led by China’s exceptional gains. The US led in 60 of 64 technologies in the five years from 2003 to 2007, but in the most recent five years (2019–2023) is leading in seven. China led in just three of 64 technologies in 2003–20074 but is now the lead country in 57 of 64 technologies in 2019–2023, increasing its lead from our rankings last year (2018–2022), where it was leading in 52 technologies…

China’s new gains have occurred in quantum sensors, high-performance computing, gravitational sensors, space launch and advanced integrated circuit design and fabrication (semiconductor chip making). The US leads in quantum computing, vaccines and medical countermeasures, nuclear medicine and radiotherapy, small satellites, atomic clocks, genetic engineering and natural language processing.

Building technological capability requires a sustained investment in, and an accumulation of, scientific knowledge, talent and high-performing institutions that can’t be acquired through only short-term or ad hoc investments.8 Reactive policies by new governments and the sugar hit of immediate budget savings must be balanced against the cost of losing the advantage gained from decades of investment and strategic planning. While China continues to extend its lead, it’s important for other states to take stock of their historical, combined and complementary strengths in all key critical technology areas.

I suppose the not-so-hidden agenda here is to get the Australian and other “western” governments to invest more in R&D long-term. That is something I would support. I would like to think that technological progress is not just a competition between nation-states but a shared project of our species and civilization. Utopian, I suppose.

Anyway – scientific publications and patents. I don’t think these are perfect measures of scientific or technological progress. Doubling these metrics will not mean that progress has doubled, but rather there must be some diminishing return. Once metrics like these are established, people are going to game the metrics to some extent rather than try to measure the underlying thing, which in this case is scientific and technological progress.

Do I have a better suggestion? Not really – well, I suppose total factor productivity is the most accepted metric of technological progress as far as I know. The holy grail would be to understand exactly how much and what types of R&D investments will maximize it over long periods of time. I am sure there are past and future Nobel laureates working on this problem, but if they have solved in conclusively I have not heard about it.

All that said, there is no excuse for the U.S. to be failing to invest in R&D. We need to ramp it up, and keep it up long term. But there is also an opportunity cost when the fire hose is focused on the military-industrial complex (not to mention the existential risks created for us and all humanity – do these alone outweigh the idea of ever winning the “competition” for dominance in horrible weapons?). Peaceful technologies that could improve human lives and our shared environment will not develop as fast as they could. And finally, to be a broken record, if we ever figure out the secret sauce to ramp up scientific and technological progress, the right thing to do is capture that value added to the economy and redirect it to improve the vast majority of human lives, protect the environment, and manage the risks we face, including risks created by the technologies themselves.

Breakthrough Energy Catalyst

Bill Gates has an idea for how to accelerate research, innovation, and adoption of new technologies.

Through BE Catalyst, the airline will be able to invest in a large refinery that produces a high volume of sustainable fuel. As the refinery gets going, the airline can start buying fuel there. Even better, once the plant’s design is proven to work, the cost of building subsequent plants will drop. With more refineries in operation, the volume of available fuel will go up and the price will come down, which will make it more attractive to buyers, which will draw more innovative companies into the market. The virtuous cycle will accelerate.

Gates Notes

So if I understand correctly, once you have a promising technology, this is a way to try to accelerate the learning curve. Often promising technologies don’t catch on because the initial unit cost is to be commercially viable. Bringing the technology to market at scale will drive down the price both because the up front investment is spread over a large number of units, and because manufacturers and users will learn by doing and the technology will improve. But there is a chicken and egg problem where somebody has to stick their neck out and make that up-front investment to get the process started, then be patient while it plays out possibly over many decades, and be willing to take at least some risk that it may not work out. So the idea behind this non-profit group seems to be to share enough of that risk so commercial entities are willing to invest.

Four specific technologies are mentioned for this process: long-duration energy storage, sustainable aviation fuels, direct air capture (of greenhouse gases), and green hydrogen.

This sounds good to me. Maybe a model like this could work in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry, where technological progress is painfully slow and the payoff of technology is likely to be over multiple decades at least.

ARPA-H

ARPA-H is an idea for a new U.S. agency (probably within the existing National Institutes of Health) focused on leading edge medical and biotech research. It seems like a bit of a gimmick to me, but if this is what it takes to fund research and development (as opposed to just funding more research and development) I am all for it. The U.S. should have a competitive advantage here, and this should benefit out citizens.

March 2021 in Review

Most frightening and/or depressing story: In the U.S. upper Midwest (I don’t know if this region is better or worse than the country as a whole, or why they picked it), electric blackouts average 92 minutes per year, versus 4 minutes per year in Japan.

Most hopeful story: I officially released my infrastructure plan for America, a few weeks before Joe Biden released his. None of the Sunday morning talk shows has called me to discuss so far. Unfortunately, I do not have the resources of the U.S. Treasury or Federal Reserve available to me. Of course, neither does he unless he can convince Congress to go along with at least some portion of his plans. Looking at his proposal, I think he is proposing to direct the fire hoses at the right fires (children, education, research, water, the electric grid and electric vehicles, maintenance of highways and roads, housing, and ecosystems. There is still no real planning involved, because planning needs to be done in between crises and it never is. Still, I think it is a good proposal that will pay off economically while helping real people, and I hope a substantial portion of it survives.

Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: One study says 1-2 days per week is a sweet spot for working from home in terms of a positive economic contribution at the national scale. I think it is about right psychologically for many people too. However, this was a very theoretical simulation, and other studies attempting to measure this at the individual or firm scale have come up with a 20-50% loss in productivity. I think the jury is still out on this one, but I know from personal experience that people need to interact and communicate regularly for teams to be productive, and some people require more supervision than others, and I don’t think technology is a perfect substitute for doing these things in person so far.

sperm counts and clean chemistry

Yes, according to one study from 2017, sperm counts are crashing and if you just extrapolate out in time it leads to disaster for the human race. Now, I had heard that sperm counts have dropped steadily over the decades, and we still have plenty of sperm for now, but we don’t know where the trend is headed next. I know about the concerns with endocrine disrupters. We also know that fertility is down for a variety of reasons, beginning with women around the world having more choices in terms of education and career.

This comprehensive meta-regression analysis reports a significant decline in sperm counts (as measured by SC and TSC) between 1973 and 2011, driven by a 50-60% decline among men unselected by fertility from North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Because of the significant public health implications of these results, research on the causes of this continuing decline is urgently needed.

Temporal trends in sperm count: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis

I assume we are probably headed for a world of more technologically-assisted reproduction for a variety of reasons, beginning with just wanting to have more control over our fertility at various stages of our lives. But endocrine disrupters are potentially bad news for humans and for ecosystems. We don’t really try very hard to look for safer and equally functional chemicals before we put lots of them in the environment and in our bodies. I believe better living through chemistry does make our lives better on balance. For example, get rid of food preservatives or water disinfectants and we would instantly cause massive amounts of suffering and death. But get rid of most of the weird stuff in my shampoo, and I would still be able to wash my hair just fine. Building materials are a tough one. The tar on my roof and siding on my house are highly functional and beneficial, but they both cause pollution in production, manufacturing, and most likely cause water and air pollution. We can say similar things for materials used to build our streets and highways. We should look for clean but equally functional substitutes for all of these. And in the meantime, we should probably impose taxes to offset the impact these materials cause. This could both fund research into alternatives and provide some incentive to adopt alternatives as they become available.

experimental quad-copter at Boeing

Boeing has an experimental quad-copter that can lift 500 pounds. The way they describe it, this could fill a niche between shipping of huge containers and delivery of tiny parcels to your door.

This kind of vehicle may not fit into your drone delivery fantasy, but it has practicality on its side. “This starts to sound like the kind of thing that can do things in real life,” says Drew McElroy, CEO of Transfix, a trucking brokerage firm. As home deliveries have grown in popularity over the past 15 years or so, he says, shipments have gotten smaller, and more targeted. The old model—trucks haul supplies to Walmart, people drive to Walmart and bring home their shopping—is evaporating. Any vehicle that can fill in the gaps between the huge bulk shipments that move by sea and the shoebox-sized packages that come to our doors can play a role.

The other interesting thing about the article is a brief description of the R&D unit that developed this thing.

In fact, Boeing isn’t quite sure where it’s going. “It’s a concurrent exploration of a nascent market and nascent technology,” says Pete Kunz, the chief technologist for HorizonX, the Boeing skunk works-venture capital arm hybrid division ///something like that/// that built this thing (the marketing team hasn’t given it a catchy moniker yet)…

Exactly what it will carry and where it will take it remains an open question. Boeing doesn’t have any concrete plans or timelines for commercialization yet, but Logan Jones, HorizonX’s senior director, says it could tote supplies to offshore oil rigs, or any other “dull, dirty, and dangerous” work now done by helicopters, which require expensive human pilots. It could take pallets from a port to a distribution center, or from a distribution center to a store. “This won’t show up at your door,” Jones says. (This is a commercial project, but it’s easy to see potential military applications, like moving supplies around combat areas.)