Last week, UCLA mathematician Terence Tao wrote a Mastodon thread describing how important mistakes, wrong directions, and incomplete solutions are for the field. “In most cases in pure mathematics, the problems are posed not because we desperately want the solution to these problems in and of themselves, but because we have seen from past experience that human-directed efforts to solve these problems tend to spur further development of the field,” Tao wrote. “Prematurely solving the problem by purely AI-powered methods—particularly without full transparency into the solution process—can contaminate this process to the point where it actually becomes a net negative for the progress of mathematics as a whole.” Humans might take longer than agents to solve mathematical problems, but in the process, they uncover new mathematical approaches and ideas that might inspire their peers and even birth their own subfields. But when AI agents solve those problems instead—and when private companies keep the agents’ wrong turns from public view—those benefits disappear. It remains to be seen what else will vanish in the process.

MIT Technology Review

What OpenAI’s latest controversy tells us about the future of math

AI companies are making impressive mathematical strides. Human mathematicians are losing out.

"If we are correct, the US State Department and the Pentagon are leveraging their vast global network of indirect financial resources to bolster a realm of US geopolitical power long under Chinese threat." - Doomberg

*Nvidia is clearly aware that while the barrier to entry for custom silicon has fallen through the floor, scaling that compute remains the hard part.* Nvidia is building an IP licensing empire on the back of NVLink

theregister

Nvidia is building an IP licensing empire on the back of NVLink

Even when you think you

*the task of making something good — of arriving at a solution that is obvious — is often met with a kind of ambivalence, like “Nice work…I guess? Seems obvious tbh.” That’s the work of design: to make something so good, it’s obvious. But there’s often little acclaim for the obvious because, well, it’s so obvious (in hindsight).*

Make It Work vs. Make It Good

Writing about the big beautiful mess that is making things for the world wide web.

"We're in a transitionary period where the revolting peasants have a first-mover advantage, so for now it gives the little guy a leg up, but in the long run this is a radically unequal system of wealth distribution heavily biased in favor of "the wealthy" (high earners). The benefit to future peasants is that they get to live in system that doesn't punish success, where decisions are incentivized by what the masses actually buy on the market, not what they say they want or think would be more fair based on their feelings. So the Gini coefficient and other such Keynesian measures of "inequality" grow to absurd levels, but everyone's quality of life improves."

Stacker News

Jeff Booth seems to think Bitcoin is decentralized still. What am I missing? \ stacker news

@desertdave stacked 100 sats posting https://youtu.be/6iBhQ_iWQZg [2 comments]

https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/jrjfas/sydney_opera_house_illuminated_by_the_works_of/

@mike A 65-year-old programming language called COBOL still quietly processes over $3 trillion in banking transactions every single day — and because the original engineers are rapidly retiring, banks are scrambling to pay younger developers fortunes just to keep the ancient infrastructure from breaking - Make Tech Easier

Make Tech Easier

A 65-year-old programming language called COBOL still quietly processes over $3 trillion in banking transactions every single day — and because the original engineers are rapidly retiring, banks are scrambling to pay younger developers fortunes just to keep the ancient infrastructure from breaking - Make Tech Easier

The next time you use an ATM, transfer money between accounts, or swipe a credit card at a checkout, there is a strong chance that somewhere behind...