Old and new apps, via modern coding agents by Terry Tao

(terrytao.wordpress.com)

108 points | by subset 2 hours ago

14 comments

  • luciana1u 1 hour ago
    Terry Tao using coding agents to build apps means we're one step away from a Fields Medalist asking an LLM why his Docker container won't start, just like the rest of us.
  • wffurr 1 hour ago
    Nice balanced perspective there at the end:

    "as such [LLM-coded interactive] supplements are not mission-critical to the core of the paper, I again feel that the downside risk of using guided interaction with LLM agents to generate such visualizations is acceptable."

    It's a tool. Good for some things but not others and generally not to be trusted.

  • jdw64 1 minute ago
    His website using mathematical knowledge is refreshing. There's a small UI bug, but personally, I wish more educational materials were this rich in audiovisual content.
  • suwapat 7 minutes ago
    LLM will do very good job in pure mathematics since it don't need the senses to logically understand/conclude a given topic.
  • koe123 24 minutes ago
    I am far from a mathematician but I am excited by the possibilities of using AI for generating more math. Math in my mind exists purely in the world of forms, and cannot be appropriated for profit, but is downstream to everything else. I am keen to see what this enables.
  • muragekibicho 1 hour ago
    The article's awkward opening statement proves it wasn't written by AI.

    I have been interested in machine-assisted ways to do and teach mathematics from as far back as 1999, when I started coding several applets in Java 1.0, both for my complex analysis and linear algebra courses, to visualize various mathematical objects I was interested in (such as honeycombs or Besicovitch sets).

  • alansaber 24 minutes ago
    I always enjoy these "domain expert has fun using AI to do something in their domain" articles. But it's always a hobby project, never something serious.
  • vatsachak 15 minutes ago
    Using LLMs to generate dashboards is probably their most productive use case
  • jgalt212 1 hour ago
    The more Terry talks about AI, the more I'm starting to feel like Terry may have some undisclosed conflicts of interest.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/mathematics/comments/1tryyw7/terenc...

    • sega_sai 1 hour ago
      When it comes to coding, non-programmers do not have to be in a defensive position worried that their job is under risk, instead they just see a great tool that saves them time, especially doing boring coding like dashboards, visualizations, interactive web-pages, or doing experiments that they otherwise would not have time for.
      • simonw 51 minutes ago
        • jdright 47 minutes ago
          Mathematicians are a kind of programmers, the original ones.
          • lagrange77 22 minutes ago
            Why are mathematicians a kind of programmers? Besides applied maths, aren't they more researchers that explore and discover, in contrast to the majority of programmers who are more like handymen?
      • lowsong 40 minutes ago
        "When it comes to a field I'm not an expert in, AI is a great tool."

        Every time.

        • alansaber 27 minutes ago
          Yes, because AI gets the "shape" of something right. If you don't know the field you don't notice the pockmarked surface.
        • lagrange77 20 minutes ago
          I think the opposite is true.
          • wizzwizz4 0 minutes ago
            So does anyone familiar with the Gell-Mann amnesia effect.
      • hansmayer 1 hour ago
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    • nmfisher 1 hour ago
      Or he just finds it an incredible time-saving tool to help him do more maths.
      • perching_aix 1 hour ago
        The well-known bias and conflict of interest of "I just enjoy experimenting with this new thing".
    • hansmayer 1 hour ago
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