Nick Huntington-Klein
@nickchk.com
Econ prof at Seattle University. Book The Effect http://theeffectbook.net out now! Substack https://nickchk.substack.com/ Twitter @nickchk
My elevator arrived looking like this. Welp I guess we all have to die someday
October 28, 2025 at 7:56 PM
My elevator arrived looking like this. Welp I guess we all have to die someday
Look if you don't want me to share the code you can't give me a code like this
October 17, 2025 at 9:56 PM
Look if you don't want me to share the code you can't give me a code like this
and with silent speed it disappears on its own into the mists
October 13, 2025 at 5:29 PM
and with silent speed it disappears on its own into the mists
well that's unexpected
October 13, 2025 at 5:25 PM
well that's unexpected
Hell yeah the class action payment came through. I'm gonna be rolling in it
October 3, 2025 at 8:27 PM
Hell yeah the class action payment came through. I'm gonna be rolling in it
A variant of the two-girl problem is making the rounds these days and I am unable to not click on the comments sections every time. I'll say that I definitely prefer this (an actual interesting question) vs. pointless PEMDAS "math" internet arguments. But man people love being confidently wrong.
September 25, 2025 at 8:41 PM
A variant of the two-girl problem is making the rounds these days and I am unable to not click on the comments sections every time. I'll say that I definitely prefer this (an actual interesting question) vs. pointless PEMDAS "math" internet arguments. But man people love being confidently wrong.
I am genuinely shocked how robust this lil puzzle is. GPT-5 thinks for 5 mins and then fails it as well.
August 7, 2025 at 8:03 PM
I am genuinely shocked how robust this lil puzzle is. GPT-5 thinks for 5 mins and then fails it as well.
I got an exciting box in the mail today! Looks like The Effect: Second Edition is live! I've updated the website as well, so you can check out the changes and the new Partial Identification chapter (+ a new mini-chapter on finding material in the book) at theeffectbook.net
July 8, 2025 at 11:04 PM
I got an exciting box in the mail today! Looks like The Effect: Second Edition is live! I've updated the website as well, so you can check out the changes and the new Partial Identification chapter (+ a new mini-chapter on finding material in the book) at theeffectbook.net
I shall now be dadding twice as hard 🏳️🌈
June 15, 2025 at 12:00 AM
I shall now be dadding twice as hard 🏳️🌈
ahhhh of course. how ridiculous i was to try to square an integer. surely that doesn't have a well-defined meaning
May 13, 2025 at 9:40 PM
ahhhh of course. how ridiculous i was to try to square an integer. surely that doesn't have a well-defined meaning
...what? pandas cmon now
May 13, 2025 at 9:33 PM
...what? pandas cmon now
I get "sell your Tesla" as a line although also
March 9, 2025 at 8:09 PM
I get "sell your Tesla" as a line although also
happened to be looking at some of kaiser permanente's 2021 tax filings, got a real shock, and then learned that there's just a director there with an extremely unfortunate name
January 7, 2025 at 8:06 PM
happened to be looking at some of kaiser permanente's 2021 tax filings, got a real shock, and then learned that there's just a director there with an extremely unfortunate name
lol i guess fair although i'm not sure if it's for the album cover thumbnail (which, the book tells me, was replaced for Wal-Mart printings) or the song title which i guess i we need to refer to as tangentially about "unaliving" a la tiktok but here too
December 23, 2024 at 6:44 AM
lol i guess fair although i'm not sure if it's for the album cover thumbnail (which, the book tells me, was replaced for Wal-Mart printings) or the song title which i guess i we need to refer to as tangentially about "unaliving" a la tiktok but here too
Beyond that, the LLM results are very inconsistent. Which prompting methods generate the best results varies significantly across model and setting. And even minor things like "the order of the multiple choice options" greatly changes the results.
December 17, 2024 at 9:26 PM
Beyond that, the LLM results are very inconsistent. Which prompting methods generate the best results varies significantly across model and setting. And even minor things like "the order of the multiple choice options" greatly changes the results.
There's a signal here - an expert-classified confounder is more likely to be LLM-classified as a confounder (top four panels here) than one the experts said wasn't a confounder (bottom two). But it's quite inconsistent, and the signal here isn't really strong enough that you could rely on.
December 17, 2024 at 9:26 PM
There's a signal here - an expert-classified confounder is more likely to be LLM-classified as a confounder (top four panels here) than one the experts said wasn't a confounder (bottom two). But it's quite inconsistent, and the signal here isn't really strong enough that you could rely on.
So let's test how well it does at that. We use the Coronary Drug Project, an experimental study that faced poor treatment adherence in its placebo arm, introducing confounding. Several studies have built necessary adjustment sets using expert opinion. *The LLM can see those studies.*
December 17, 2024 at 9:26 PM
So let's test how well it does at that. We use the Coronary Drug Project, an experimental study that faced poor treatment adherence in its placebo arm, introducing confounding. Several studies have built necessary adjustment sets using expert opinion. *The LLM can see those studies.*
Why might we expect LLMs could help with this task? At first blush you might expect this to require LLMs to have a real-world causal understanding of how the world works. But not really. If people have talked online about causal links, then the LLM could potentially just repeat that back.
December 17, 2024 at 9:26 PM
Why might we expect LLMs could help with this task? At first blush you might expect this to require LLMs to have a real-world causal understanding of how the world works. But not really. If people have talked online about causal links, then the LLM could potentially just repeat that back.
i had an idea for a fun creative lil math puzzle but then i think i solved it too quickly
November 23, 2024 at 6:25 AM
i had an idea for a fun creative lil math puzzle but then i think i solved it too quickly
As always, vtable is an R package for exploring your data, including a variable explorer that stays up on the Viewer as you work (vtable / vt), and a good-defaults-less-fiddling summary table function good for exploration (sumtable / st). Plus plenty of other goodies.
October 17, 2024 at 7:20 PM
As always, vtable is an R package for exploring your data, including a variable explorer that stays up on the Viewer as you work (vtable / vt), and a good-defaults-less-fiddling summary table function good for exploration (sumtable / st). Plus plenty of other goodies.
discovered today that Oath offers a new service where if you use them to strategically donate to underfunded swing-state races they will unsubscribe from all the DNC spam for you bahahaha
October 4, 2024 at 5:39 AM
discovered today that Oath offers a new service where if you use them to strategically donate to underfunded swing-state races they will unsubscribe from all the DNC spam for you bahahaha
man the people in file piracy really know how to market
October 1, 2024 at 4:51 PM
man the people in file piracy really know how to market