April 8, 2025
Does Testosterone Make Men?
Does biology determine destiny, or is society the dominant cause of masculine and feminine traits? In this spirited exchange, the psychologist Cordelia Fine and the evolutionary biologist Carole Hooven unpack the complex relationship between testosterone and human behaviour. Fine emphasises variability, flexibility and context – seeing gender as shaped by social forces as much as…
April 4, 2025
Why Trump’s FTC Firings Matter—Even If They’re Legal
President Donald Trump fired two Democratic commissioners from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last Tuesday, a move that raises important questions about the independence of regulatory agencies. If challenged in court—something the commissioners say they will do—the outcome could set a major precedent regarding presidential authority over supposedly independent agencies. Legally, this issue is murky….
April 3, 2025
The New NIH Director Has His Work Cut Out For Him
In the wake of Covid, trust in scientific and medical experts has eroded and become starkly polarized, threatening the ability of science agencies to sustain broad public support. The National Institutes of Health in particular has become a lightning rod, due to the controversial roles of Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins during the pandemic as…
March 27, 2025
We Still Haven’t Reckoned with Covid’s Costs
Five years ago, a new coronavirus to which no one was yet immune was sweeping the globe, shutting down schools and sporting events. In March 2020, masks had not yet become a partisan lightning rod — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had not yet even recommended them. And according to the Pew Research Center,…
March 26, 2025
Another Day Ending in “Y,” More Meritless Lawsuits Against the Fossil Energy Producers
One would think that Republicans would know better. One would think that Republicans from an important oil- and gas-producing state would know better. One would think, or hope, that they would prioritize the economic wellbeing of their states and the livelihoods of their constituents over their narrow political ambitions. And one would be wrong. Illustrating the perverse…
March 25, 2025
The Energy Demands of the Data-Driven Future: Challenges and Solutions
Event Summary On March 25, AEI hosted a conference on the challenges of balancing energy constraints with the rapid growth of AI and data centers. AEI’s L. Lynne Kiesling opened the event and moderated the first panel, which examined the evolving energy demands of AI infrastructure. Brian George (Google), Arne Olson (Energy and Environmental Economics),…
March 24, 2025
Response to the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management
This comment addresses analytic flaws and ambiguities in the U.S. Department of Energy Report 2024 LNG Export Study: Energy, Economic, and Environmental Assessment of U.S. LNG Exports, December 2024 (“Report”). The analysis presented in the Report is sufficiently weak analytically that it should not be used for evaluation of federal energy policies as a general…
March 19, 2025
AI and Jobs: Measuring Impact and Building New Assessment Tools
Event Summary On March 19, AEI’s Brent Orrell and Shane Tews hosted a panel discussion featuring Alex Tamkin, an AI researcher at Anthropic, and Jason Owen-Smith, a sociologist at the University of Michigan, on how AI is shaping the labor market and workforce development policy. The conversation was moderated by Axios reporter Ashley Gold. The…
March 18, 2025
A Critique of Professor Cass R. Sunstein on the Social Cost of Carbon
This paper offers critical observations on the arguments presented by Professor Cass R. Sunstein in a recent opinion column on the Trump Executive Order of January 20, 2025. That executive order ended the use of estimates of the social cost of greenhouse gases (or carbon) by federal policymakers. Read the full paper below. Sunstein-SCC-Zycher-March-2025Download
March 13, 2025
Why Your Next Coworker Might Be an AI Agent
A number of leading AI CEOs, including Sam Altman, have suggested that 2025 will mark a transition from AI systems like ChatGPT, which answer questions, to AI agents capable of performing real-world tasks autonomously. A set of new research experiments provides a tantalizing glimpse of how AI agents might combine specialized expertise to tackle complex problems—just…