Nonrival

May 11, 2026

Human experts + AI summaries - on public policy, economics, and technology.

The World Has a Finite Budget for AI Questions, and We're Already Running Out of Resources to Answer Them

chicago_booth

• Every AI query consumes real physical resources—energy, copper, water—creating a finite global "question budget" that researchers have tried to calculate for the first time
• By 2028, the US alone could support about 2,200 AI questions per person per day, but growing demand for copper and electricity will create severe bottlenecks as AI competes with electric vehicles and renewable energy
• Since AI companies currently decide how to allocate this limited capacity based on profit rather than social value, researchers argue we need new policies to ensure important uses like medical research don't lose out to cat videos

California's $20 Fast-Food Minimum Wage Raised Pay Without the Job Losses Critics Predicted

nber

• California's new $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers at large chains raised wages by about 7 percent with minimal impact on employment levels
• The policy significantly reduced worker turnover, with separation rates falling much more than typical for the restaurant sector
• Despite being the highest wage floor for fast-food workers in the U.S., the employment effects were similar to much smaller minimum wage increases in other states

One in Five UK Voters Now Gets Political Information from AI Chatbots

lse

• A new survey finds that 20% of UK adults use AI chatbots for political information, more than double the rate from July 2024, with most using it to fact-check claims they see on social media.
• Nearly 15% of respondents say they're open to using AI to help decide how to vote in future elections, potentially affecting millions of voters in upcoming UK elections.
• Most people trust the political information they get from AI and consider it accurate, with Reform UK supporters being the heaviest users and most trusting of AI for political information.

In the News

Trump's $2 billion wind farm buyouts will leave Americans paying more for less energy

the_conversation

• The Trump administration is paying offshore wind developers nearly $2 billion in taxpayer money to abandon permitted energy projects that would have powered over 3 million homes
• These cancellations eliminate hundreds of billions in economic investment and thousands of blue-collar jobs in port infrastructure, manufacturing, and construction that East Coast communities have spent years preparing for
• By reducing homegrown energy supply during a looming shortage driven by AI data centers and electrification, the buyouts will force Americans to rely on dirtier, more expensive imported power for decades to come

Analysis

The Post-Pandemic Immigration Surge Had Almost No Effect on U.S. Inflation

nber

• The U.S. experienced an extraordinary surge in immigration from 2021 to 2024, with new immigrants being primarily low-skilled and more likely to be hand-to-mouth consumers
• Economists created a detailed economic model incorporating these characteristics to measure the immigration surge's impact on inflation
• They found that the supply-side effects (more workers) and demand-side effects (more consumers) of increased immigration roughly canceled each other out, resulting in negligible inflation impact

Also Worth a Look

• SEC Chairman Outlines How Financial Regulators Should Adapt to AI and Blockchain Without Stifling Innovation (harvard_corpgov)
• College Students Are Flocking to AI-Exposed Degrees Despite Automation Fears (eig)
• AI Language Models Are Dramatically Accelerating the Creation of New Proteins (science)
• Xi Jinping's Purges Aren't Just About Power — They're His Plan to Make the Communist Party Rule China Forever (hoover)
• When Kenya Capped Interest Rates, Borrowers Gamed the System in Unexpected Ways (nber)
• Young Americans Are More Pessimistic About Jobs Than Their Elders — a Pattern Almost Nowhere Else in the World (gallup)
• The Fed Is About to Stop Cutting Rates and Start Thinking About Hiking Them (employ_america)