Bank of Russia's Computer Says Officials Must Speak More Simply

A computerized neural network has spoken: central banker Elvira Nabiullina needs to use simpler language if she wants more Russians to believe she can really reduce inflation. From a report: A study conducted by a pair of the Bank of Russia's own researchers came to the perhaps less-than-shocking conclusion that figuring out central bank statements takes a degree in economics. "All the main communication on monetary policy is accessible to only a professional audience right now," Alina Evstigneeva and Mark Sidorovsky, researchers at the bank's monetary-policy department wrote in an article published on a bank-sponsored website. "The potential for qualitative improvement in the language of communication is vast." The communications breakdown has important real-world implications, they argued. Ordinary Russians continue to be deeply skeptical of the central bank's commitment to keep inflation to its 4% target, with polls showing most expect price growth over the next year to be about triple that. That doubt helps keep inflation high, according to the central bank. Market professionals, who presumably have the economics education needed to understand the bank's words, are much more likely to expect inflation to be closer to target.

In other news

[sconeu]

Water is wet, and the Sun is hot.

Re:In other news

[nightflameauto]

Technically, water is damp until in a sufficient quantity to achieve the state of "wet."

And the Sun is only warm when compared with other star types. Barely average in fact. [lumenlearning.com]

Before anybody gets their panties in a wad, I'm bored and feeling sarcastic. You're welcome.

Re:

[bn-7bc]

You ar ofc correct on a cosmic scale of things, but thst is hardly relevant on adat to day basis when water at ~100C ( boiling point for you that insist on using inconvinient temp scales) can do serious damage to you or anyone you care about, and any star anything like the sun is way hotter. That AI might be right a lot of people don'r grok dsscount windows, lines of credit etc not to mention what liquidity really is. If such terms are used they simply hear jargon and tube out, and thus missing the informa

Anything coming out of a central banks

[oldgraybeard]

world wide is impervious to understanding by design. If they told the truth anyone could trade in the markets like the central bnankers and their buddies do.

Russian Computer Says:

[Green Goo Glitter]

The doubt about the propaganda is what makes the propaganda untrue.

Re:

[Aighearach]

Look at it this way; if I told you what the 5 year plan was, you'd be so mad I'd have to send you to Siberia. If you even still want to know, you must be a rebel!

Make prices stop growing [Oblig XKCD]

[fabioalcor]

She should try to explain complex economics concepts using only the 1,000 words people use the most often, like this: https://xkcd.com/1133/ [xkcd.com]

Well...

[jd]

Technical subjects should not be over-simplified, as that degrades the quality of the information. Rather, people should be better educated. If everyone needs to take a degree-level class in accounting in order to avoid excess simplification, well, there are worse things in life. Not many, admittedly, but there are some.

Re:

[bn-7bc]

You sr correct, the problem is, thst takes time, time the central bank does not have at present, it allso takes resoutces, which require political will. Can you see the problem here? In short some simplifiication is, at keast in the short term, rather on avoidable. Long term is a more complex problem, how much mor education, an at what kevel if detail is needed for evryone? I doubt many will see the need for all to be at the kevel of bankers/echonomists, there is allso therather unfortunate tendency of hu

Incase you're wondering how the fed res. stacks up

[Hmmmmmm]

https://www.economist.com/grap... [economist.com]

The Fed Reserve statements are said to be written at anywhere from a 9.5 to a 19th grade level, with complexity going up after 2008 when they had to do more complex and esoteric actions due to the global financial crisis.

But are these fed statements really that hard to read? Here's an example. https://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/0... [cnbc.com]

I suppose they are harder to understand than statements from the President which are generally grade school level, but you shouldn't need a post grad

The same could be said

[ve3oat]

... of a lot of other banks. The quarterly investment outlook statements for customers and investors from the RBC Royal Bank in Canada is so full of jargon that one could actually and easily get the wrong message. On the lighter side, some of the vocabulary is actually funny -- "we tend to be overweight in equities until ... ". And then there is all the marketing nonsense intended to just fluff up the predictions to make them sound more authoritative, an example of which does not come to mind because I s

Information needs to be more accessible

[bubblyceiling]

I have always felt that, we as a society have made things unnecessarily complex. This is true for nearly everything, from legal language to finance to computer terminology.

Re:

[Aighearach]

If you don't understand what they say, how do you know if the complexity was necessary?

Re:

[bubblyceiling]

Coz I do understand what they say and in many cases, it is not

WTF Slashdot

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

What a load of absolute bullcrap. The insane inflation rate in Russia is because the power has been usurped [wikipedia.org] by the group [wikipedia.org] of people who don't want the country to be competitive on the international arena, they are only interested in looting [wikipedia.org] the country and investing that money into the economies of foreign countries. And to stay in power they've been rigging the elections [bbc.com] for the past at least 15 years. As if it wasn't enough, they've found many ways to silence the opposition by calling every organization wh

Einstein vs Feynman

[dargaud]

Einstein said that you don't understand something completely unless you can explain it to your grandmother; but Feynman, when asked to explain magnetism, said that sometimes some things are just complicated. And he was GREAT at explaining thing to the layman. So having an "AI" affirm that some subject needs to be explained more simply may be at the same time right but impossible. Some subjects require an extended vocabulary and years of study. You can't create vaccines by reading conservopedia...

Re:

[phantomfive]

I believe Feynman's point was that he didn't entirely understand magnetism. (I don't. I can explain it at a chemical level, but not at a quantum level).

The AI watched Johnny Weissmüller

[nospam007]

Me Tarzan, you Jane.

Test the announcements on the people

[VeryFluffyBunny]

We've had tried & tested techniques for assessing the readability of texts for decades. It's a pity that so few organisations use them. The Flesch-Kinkaid & other similar rule-of-thumb algorithms that are built into word processors aren't particulary valid or reliable but cloze deletion tests generated from the announcement texts & tested on representative samples of the target audience work particularly well. In order to successfully complete a cloze deletion test, candidates have to fully understand what the text is about. They're the most valid & reliable reading comprehension tests devised so far. Simple & effective but shockingly underused.