Chatting about math with ChatGPT

I’m still trying to learn how to use ChatGPT to improve my productivity. One thing I’ve been experimenting with recently is to ask it to check my math. As it turns out, I’m still better at math than the algorithm. Here is a link to a recent discussion I had with ChatGPT. My entries are the short strongly indented statements. In this little conversation, ChatGPT made six separate math errors. Each time it confidently asserted something to be true when in fact it was provably false, and each time it would cheerfully admit its error when I pointed it out.

My recommendation is to keep ChatGPT on a short leash. Don’t ask it anything you can’t directly confirm yourself.

Contextualizing the Inflationary Impact of the 10%/60% Trump Tariff Plan

I was trying to think about how to contextualize the impact of the Trump 10%/60% tariffs on inflation. McKibbin-Hogan-Noland (2024) trace out the impact of this measure (as well as mass deportation) on inflation using an updated version of the G-Cubed model. In 2025, they estimate inflation will be 0.6 percentage points above baseline. Goldman-Sachs also come up with similar implied effects (although in their scenario, they only assume a portion of the tariffs are implemented)

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