AI explanation

^{Show image generation prompt} Model: dalle-3
Prompt: [ Whimsical illustration ] Visual Prompt: Generate an image of a quaint Midwestern town in North Dakota, with a charming community hall as the focal point. Surrounding the hall are a diverse group of lively residents huddled around a table, passionately brainstorming ideas and sketching out inventive security systems. In the midst of the conversation, a local inventor enthusiastically presents a new locking mechanism for doors, while another resident demonstrates a clever alarm system. Elsewhere in the town, a few individuals are seen drafting blueprints and diagrams, eagerly filing patent applications with the US Patent Office. The scene should exude a sense of determination and creativity as the community bands together to combat the recent spike in robberies, ultimately resulting in a surge of patents granted in the US. The overall style should be whimsical and heartwarming, capturing the spirit of innovation and camaraderie within the town. The depiction should include only scenes, people, and objects, it should not include text or speech bubbles.

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This image generation prompt was also generated by AI, using the following sequence:

Model: gpt-3.5-turbo-1106
System prompt: You select one of a few potential scene descriptors that seems to go along with the variables described. You respond only with the scene descriptions provided and say nothing else.
User prompt: Here are two variables: Robberies in North Dakota and Patents granted in the US. Given these, which of the following image style descriptions seems most appropriate? Pick the one that seems to be related to one of the variables at hand. Please respond with only one of the following potential descriptions: Woodblock painting Oragami Charcoal Cute cartoon Whimsical illustration
ChatGPT: Whimsical illustration

Model: gpt-3.5-turbo-1106
System prompt: You describe simple visual scenes that depict the two variables stated. You combine both variables into one scene.
User prompt: Please describe a visual scene that prominently depicts both Robberies in North Dakota and Patents granted in the US, in the following situation: As the saying goes, "desperate times call for brilliant inventions!" The spike in robberies in North Dakota led to an unexpected surge in innovation, as residents sought new ways to protect their belongings and outsmart the thieves. This ultimately resulted in an increase in patents granted in the US, as North Dakotans' sticky situations bred a new wave of creative problem-solving. Remember, necessity may be the mother of invention, but a good old-fashioned heist is the wacky uncle!. Keep the description simple.
ChatGPT: In a small town in North Dakota, a group of residents gather in a community hall, discussing recent robberies that have taken place. They huddle around a table, brainstorming ideas and sketching out innovative security systems to protect their homes and businesses. A local inventor excitedly presents a new locking mechanism for doors, while another resident demonstrates a clever alarm system. Meanwhile, in another part of town, a few individuals are seen drafting blueprints and diagrams, as they eagerly file patent applications with the US Patent Office. The air is filled with a spirit of determination and creativity, as the spike in robberies fuels a surge of inventive solutions, ultimately resulting in a rise in patents granted in the US.

Model: gpt-3.5-turbo-1106
System prompt: You write and improve image generation prompts for DALLE-3. You maintain the same subjects, but enhance the visuals.
User prompt: Please respond with an image generation prompt that would be likely to create an interesting visual using DALLE-3, using the following style: [ Whimsical illustration ] and depicting this scene: In a small town in North Dakota, a group of residents gather in a community hall, discussing recent robberies that have taken place. They huddle around a table, brainstorming ideas and sketching out innovative security systems to protect their homes and businesses. A local inventor excitedly presents a new locking mechanism for doors, while another resident demonstrates a clever alarm system. Meanwhile, in another part of town, a few individuals are seen drafting blueprints and diagrams, as they eagerly file patent applications with the US Patent Office. The air is filled with a spirit of determination and creativity, as the spike in robberies fuels a surge of inventive solutions, ultimately resulting in a rise in patents granted in the US. Keep the visual depiction simple. Do not include any words or speech bubbles.
ChatGPT: [ Whimsical illustration ] Visual Prompt: Generate an image of a quaint Midwestern town in North Dakota, with a charming community hall as the focal point. Surrounding the hall are a diverse group of lively residents huddled around a table, passionately brainstorming ideas and sketching out inventive security systems. In the midst of the conversation, a local inventor enthusiastically presents a new locking mechanism for doors, while another resident demonstrates a clever alarm system. Elsewhere in the town, a few individuals are seen drafting blueprints and diagrams, eagerly filing patent applications with the US Patent Office. The scene should exude a sense of determination and creativity as the community bands together to combat the recent spike in robberies, ultimately resulting in a surge of patents granted in the US. The overall style should be whimsical and heartwarming, capturing the spirit of innovation and camaraderie within the town.

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*Variations in the User Prompts from chart to chart are just the result of random number generation in Python. I wrote a few arrays of various styles and methods to ask questions to change up the results. Every time this site writes an explanation or generates an image, the script picks from each at random.

I sequence the requests into multiple prompts because I find GPT 3.5 to perform much better with short, well-managed contexts. Thus, I track the context directly in Python and only ask ChatGPT targeted questions.

AI academic paper

The Great Dakota Patent Heist: Uncovering the Connection Between Robberies in North Dakota and US Patents Journal of Criminological Patent Research Jan 2024

Problem variable:	Which variable has a problem? Robberies in North Dakota Patents granted in the US Neither / both
Issue:	What is the issue? The data is incorrect The chart isn't displaying properly There is a typo The source link is incorrect A calculation is wrong Something else
Additional details: Optional
Confirm you are a human:

Data details

Why this works

1. Data dredging: I have 25,153 variables in my database. I compare all these variables against each other to find ones that randomly match up. That's 632,673,409 correlation calculations! This is called “data dredging.” Instead of starting with a hypothesis and testing it, I instead abused the data to see what correlations shake out. It’s a dangerous way to go about analysis, because any sufficiently large dataset will yield strong correlations completely at random.
2. Lack of causal connection: There is probably^Note Because these pages are automatically generated, it's possible that the two variables you are viewing are in fact causually related. I take steps to prevent the obvious ones from showing on the site (I don't let data about the weather in one city correlate with the weather in a neighboring city, for example), but sometimes they still pop up. If they are related, cool! You found a loophole.
   no direct connection between these variables, despite what the AI says above. This is exacerbated by the fact that I used "Years" as the base variable. Lots of things happen in a year that are not related to each other! Most studies would use something like "one person" in stead of "one year" to be the "thing" studied.
3. Observations not independent: For many variables, sequential years are not independent of each other. If a population of people is continuously doing something every day, there is no reason to think they would suddenly change how they are doing that thing on January 1. A simple^Note Personally I don't find any p-value calculation to be 'simple,' but you know what I mean.
   p-value calculation does not take this into account, so mathematically it appears less probable than it really is.

Try it yourself

# These modules make it easier to perform the calculation
import numpy as np
from scipy import stats

# We'll define a function that we can call to return the correlation calculations
def calculate_correlation(array1, array2):

    # Calculate Pearson correlation coefficient and p-value
    correlation, p_value = stats.pearsonr(array1, array2)

    # Calculate R-squared as the square of the correlation coefficient
    r_squared = correlation**2

    return correlation, r_squared, p_value

# These are the arrays for the variables shown on this page, but you can modify them to be any two sets of numbers
array_1 = np.array([6.4,6.9,7.6,8.1,9.2,7.8,8,7.9,8.3,11.1,10,11,6.4,10.2,8.8,8.7,9.4,9.1,8.4,6.8,8.5,11.8,11.7,11.4,16.5,13.3,13.3,18.1,22.2,23.6,21,24,24.2,20.8,24.1,19.7,])
array_2 = np.array([71661,70860,82952,77924,95537,90365,96511,97444,98342,101676,101419,109645,111984,147517,153485,157494,166035,167331,169023,164290,143806,173772,157282,157772,167349,219614,224505,253155,277835,300677,298408,303049,318828,307759,354430,352049,])
array_1_name = "Robberies in North Dakota"
array_2_name = "Patents granted in the US"

# Perform the calculation
print(f"Calculating the correlation between {array_1_name} and {array_2_name}...")
correlation, r_squared, p_value = calculate_correlation(array_1, array_2)

# Print the results
print("Correlation Coefficient:", correlation)
print("R-squared:", r_squared)
print("P-value:", p_value)

Reuseable content

• High resolution line chart ^Note The image linked here is a Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG). It is the highest resolution that is possible to achieve. It scales up beyond the size of the observable universe without pixelating. You do not need to email me asking if I have a higher resolution image. I do not. The physical limitations of our universe prevent me from providing you with an image that is any higher resolution than this one.
  
  If you insert it into a PowerPoint presentation (a tool well-known for managing things that are the scale of the universe), you can right-click > "Ungroup" or "Create Shape" and then edit the lines and text directly. You can also change the colors this way.
  
  Alternatively you can use a tool like Inkscape.
  
• High resolution line chart, optimized for mobile
• Alternative high resolution line chart
• Scatterplot
• Portable line chart (png)
• Portable line chart (png), optimized for mobile
• Line chart for only Robberies in North Dakota
• Line chart for only Patents granted in the US
• AI-generated correlation image
• The spurious research paper: The Great Dakota Patent Heist: Uncovering the Connection Between Robberies in North Dakota and US Patents