AI explanation

^{Show image generation prompt} Model: dalle-3
Prompt: Generate an image of a bustling New Jersey polling station with a long line of voters snaking through the space. People are casting their ballots for the Democrat Presidential candidate. In the center of the image, shimmering disco balls materialize above the crowd, filling the room with a dazzling spectacle. Meanwhile, transition to Brunei, depicting a group of oil rig workers taking a break from their duties and breaking into spontaneous dance. Their movements cause a noticeable increase in petroleum consumption. 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: Votes for the Democrat Presidential candidate in New Jersey and Petroluem consumption in Brunei. 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: Cutsy graphics A scene from Skyrim a meme Magic realism Vaporwave
ChatGPT: A scene from Skyrim

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 Votes for the Democrat Presidential candidate in New Jersey and Petroluem consumption in Brunei, in the following situation: It turns out that every time a New Jersey resident votes for the Democrat Presidential candidate, a magical ripple effect occurs, causing a temporary spike in demand for disco balls. These disco balls are all imported from Brunei, leading to a sudden surge in shipping activity. Now, in a bizarre twist of events, it just so happens that these shipments coincide with impromptu dance parties on Brunei's oil rigs, causing the workers to bust out their finest dance moves to the rhythm of "Stayin' Alive." As a result, the increased movement and grooving leads to a slight, but noticeable, rise in petroluem consumption. Who knew politics could get the oil pumping in such a funky way? The power of democracy and dance strikes again!. Keep the description simple.
ChatGPT: In New Jersey, a line of voters snake through a polling station, each casting their ballots for the Democrat Presidential candidate. Suddenly, shimmering disco balls materialize above them, filling the room with a dazzling spectacle. Meanwhile, in Brunei, oil rig workers take a break from their duties and break into spontaneous dance, their movements causing a noticeable increase in petroleum consumption.

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: [ A scene from Skyrim ] and depicting this scene: In New Jersey, a line of voters snake through a polling station, each casting their ballots for the Democrat Presidential candidate. Suddenly, shimmering disco balls materialize above them, filling the room with a dazzling spectacle. Meanwhile, in Brunei, oil rig workers take a break from their duties and break into spontaneous dance, their movements causing a noticeable increase in petroleum consumption. Keep the visual depiction simple. Do not include any words or speech bubbles.
ChatGPT: Generate an image of a bustling New Jersey polling station with a long line of voters snaking through the space. People are casting their ballots for the Democrat Presidential candidate. In the center of the image, shimmering disco balls materialize above the crowd, filling the room with a dazzling spectacle. Meanwhile, transition to Brunei, depicting a group of oil rig workers taking a break from their duties and breaking into spontaneous dance. Their movements cause a noticeable increase in petroleum consumption.

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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

Blue Wave and Black Gold: Investigating the Surprising Link Between Democratic Votes in New Jersey and Petroleum Consumption in Brunei The Journal of Eclectic Social Science Research Jan 2024

Problem variable:	Which variable has a problem? Votes for the Democrat Presidential candidate in New Jersey Petroluem consumption in Brunei 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.
4. Y-axis doesn't start at zero: I truncated the Y-axes of the graph above. I also used a line graph, which makes the visual connection stand out more than it deserves. ^Note Nothing against line graphs. They are great at telling a story when you have linear data! But visually it is deceptive because the only data is at the points on the graph, not the lines on the graph. In between each point, the data could have been doing anything. Like going for a random walk by itself!
   Mathematically what I showed is true, but it is intentionally misleading. Below is the same chart but with both Y-axes starting at zero.

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([38.558,39.1975,42.5981,42.954,53.7203,56.1256,52.9234,57.2721,58.3424,55.4531,57.3342,])
array_2 = np.array([4.8,5.6,6.12765,7.09135,12.6,12.9398,13.8252,16.7423,17.4729,17.5984,17.8258,])
array_1_name = "Votes for the Democrat Presidential candidate in New Jersey"
array_2_name = "Petroluem consumption in Brunei"

# 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 Votes for the Democrat Presidential candidate in New Jersey
• Line chart for only Petroluem consumption in Brunei
• AI-generated correlation image
• The spurious research paper: Blue Wave and Black Gold: Investigating the Surprising Link Between Democratic Votes in New Jersey and Petroleum Consumption in Brunei