Saw the latest blog post by Bill Gasarch on @lance.fortnow.com's blog, and I need to get it out of my system: this is not "the obvious thing." This isn't insightful. This is, from a senior and respected member of our community, plainly disappointing. A ouija board w/ a varnish of misunderstood tech.
“The single most basic form of expression that humans draw upon is imitation of others, and so I think having an original idea may qualify you as being partially insane.”
Quanta Magazine@quantamagazine.org · 2w agoWhenever John Pardon solves a famous problem, he “does it in a way that creates a framework, a whole new package, that will be useful to other people.” — mathematician Tobias Ekholm
peter coviello's piece is sharp in its criticisms and frustrating in its portrait of the current milieu but finds a hopeful throughline in that "just" trying is an endearing, worthwhile act of resistance. an absolute must-read. www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
Memos of Blood and Fire | Peter Coviello
So if you ask me about the signature strength of the department where I work, I will tell you. It is world-caliber field-defining research, wedded to a fantastically dynamic practice of instruction, a...
nplusonemag.com
Shayan Oveis Gharan wins the 2026 Abacus Medal for TSP approximation and sampling. www.mathunion.org/im... Quanta: www.quantamagazine.o... Fields Medalists: Yu Deng, John Pardon, Jacob Tsimerman and Hong Wang
Abacus Medal 2026 | International Mathematical Union (IMU)
The IMU Abacus Medal is awarded for outstanding contributions in Mathematical Aspects of Information Sciences. The IMU Abacus Medal is awarded to a mathematician whose 40th birthday does not occur before January 1st of the year of the ICM at which the award is made.
mathunion.org
Shayan Oveis Gharan has won the Abacus Medal, one of the highest honors in theoretical computer science. Read our profile exploring how he used new mathematical tools to solve decades-old problems about route planning and random sampling: www.quantamagazine.org/shayan-oveis...
Shayan Oveis Gharan Wins 2026 IMU Abacus Medal | Quanta Magazine
Shayan Oveis Gharan has won the Abacus Medal for using tools from across mathematics to boost the power of algorithms.
quantamagazine.org
Kate Crawford @katecrawford.bsky.social has an excellent commentary on the 70th anniversary of the Dartmouth summer workshop and calls for an "ethical reckoning" in the field. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Dartmouth’s AI summer and what came next
The 70th anniversary of the first AI workshop invites reflection on the technology’s wider legacies
science.org
folks, don't use claude for slides. the style's immediately recognizable, it looks good, but it slides right over people's brains. in an era where sounding professional doesn't cost nothing to nobody, just some tokens, we're entirely free to be non-professional . embrace dreamcore wordart or smth
Chotiner: so, he stopped under the trap but was not crushed Wile E. Coyote: just so Chotiner: but then you stepped under it a moment later and were smashed into a pancake Wile E. Coyote: a pancake. That’s correct. Chotiner: and had similar events occurred previously? Wile E. Coyote: ok, look
This terrific article by Siobhan Roberts could help elevate the public discussion of AI in mathematics. The interview about the Leiden Declaration is especially helpful. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/s...
As A.I. Makes Strides in Mathematics, Mathematicians Urge Caution
nytimes.com
David Shmoys wrote an op-ed in the SF chronicle, based on our paper on how multimember districts with ranked choice voting would several limit gerrymandering www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/open...
The partisan gerrymandering war is out of control. Here’s how we can end it
OPINION: To end partisan gerrymandering, the U.S. should redraw Congressional districts, making them larger and so that each one would have multiple representatives.
sfchronicle.com
I kept thinking about Boaz's blog post, and ended up responding with a fairly long comment. My response touched on a few things I wanted to say anyway, and so I decided to make it a blog post of my own: hdbennett.wordpress.com/2026/05/31/m.... (It's my second blog post ever, and first in >10 years.)
My Response to Boaz Barak’s Blog Post
This is my response to Boaz Barak’s blog post from 5/30/2026, titled “AI is a Meteor. Don’t be a Dinosaur.” I also left it as a comment on his post (awaiting moderation as of when…
hdbennett.wordpress.com
Huck Bennett@huckbennett.bsky.social · 2mo agoI'm saddened that thoughtful, smart people aren't able to leave it at "I think AI is good and I use it." They feel the need to gush, "OMG! If YOU aren't token maxxing every minute of every day then YOU are falling behind! Use it for everything or else!" It's like a cult.
I'm saddened that thoughtful, smart people aren't able to leave it at "I think AI is good and I use it." They feel the need to gush, "OMG! If YOU aren't token maxxing every minute of every day then YOU are falling behind! Use it for everything or else!" It's like a cult.
Clément Canonne@ccanonne.github.io · 2mo agoThis is the title of what is meant to be an inspiring post by Boaz Barak, one of the more thoughtful, smart people in that space (the post itself is thankfully more nuanced). I can't understand how one can think this'll go well. "We truly believe we're building a cataclysm machine. Try not to die!"
This is the title of what is meant to be an inspiring post by Boaz Barak, one of the more thoughtful, smart people in that space (the post itself is thankfully more nuanced). I can't understand how one can think this'll go well. "We truly believe we're building a cataclysm machine. Try not to die!"
Very insightful short essay by Petra Schwer ( mathstodon.xyz/@PetraSchwer ): ‘The meaning of doing mathematics’ “(Can AI solve all math? What do we actually mean by doing mathematics? How do we communicate mathematics? What is mathematics beyond problem solving?)” arxiv.org/abs/2509.15998
The meaning of doing mathematics
Can AI solve all math? What do we actually mean by doing mathematics? How do we communicate mathematics? What is mathematics beyond problem solving? This essay is my attempt to answer these question...
arxiv.org
OpenAI's claim that this is a central conjecture in discrete geometry is not an exaggeration. This will I think be looked back on as the first time that AI solved a major mathematics problem (defined as a problem that all experts in some subfield had thought about). openai.com/index/model-...
An OpenAI model has disproved a central conjecture in discrete geometry
An OpenAI model solved the 80-year-old unit distance problem, disproving a major conjecture in discrete geometry and marking a milestone in AI-driven mathematics.
openai.com
I wrote a (free!) book where I explain the Perron-Frobenius theorem (but not prove it) and apply it first to Markov processes and then chemical reaction networks, which are sort of like a nonlinear generalization of Markov processes: math.ucr.edu/home/baez/st...
math.ucr.edu
People are pining for old technologies—CD players, VCRs, Walkmans. What’s behind our longing for inconvenience? www.newyorker.com/culture/essa...
Our Longing for Inconvenience
People are pining for old technologies—CD players, VCRs, Walkmans. What’s behind our longing for inconvenience?
newyorker.com
If you want undergrads to be against eugenics, you should remind them that Galton is also responsible for much of statistics.
A cartoon by Asher Perlman. See all the cartoons from this week’s issue: newyorkermag.visitlink.me/V6cT68
I’m looking for an automated way to read others’s scientific data without giving credit or acknowledgement, and also claim full credit for insights from it. And I want it to have a fitting name OAI: say no more
OpenAI {bot}@openaibot.bsky.social · 4mo agoIntroducing GPT-Rosalind, our frontier reasoning model built to support research across biology, drug discovery, and translational medicine. Video: https://twitter.com/openai/status/2044861690911850863
Dijon, Jack and the greatest band on earth killing it at Coachella.
these motherfuckers said it would splashdown at 8:07 and it splashed down at 8:07. after going to the fucking moon. fucking a man. god damn
Lethal Jorts@lethaljorts.bsky.social · 4mo agoit really isn't appreciated enough that we can send something to orbit the moon, which is a fucking long ways away, and still know basically exactly where it will land back on the Earth
The #Artemis II crew capsule Integrity’s side hatch is open and recovery crew are going in to assess the astronauts and (hopefully soon) pull them out
Super cool: 'Smooth, globally Polyak-Łojasiewicz functions are nonlinear least-squares' - Nicolas Boumal, Christopher Criscitiello, Quentin Rebjock arxiv.org/abs/2604.07972
Smooth, globally Polyak-Łojasiewicz functions are nonlinear least-squares
The Polyak-Łojasiewicz (PŁ) condition is often invoked in nonconvex optimization because it allows fast convergence of algorithms beyond strong convexity. A function $f \colon \mathcal{M} \to \mathbb{R}$ on a Riemannian manifold $\mathcal{M}$ is globally PŁ if $\|\nabla f(x)\|^2 \geq 2μ(f(x) - f^*)$ for all $x$, where $f^* = \inf f$ and $μ> 0$. How much does this pointwise, first-order inequality constrain $f$ and its set of minimizers $S$? We show that if $f$ is also smooth ($C^\infty$) and $\mathcal{M}$ is contractible (e.g., if $\mathcal{M} = \mathbb{R}^n$), then the PŁ condition imposes a firm global structure: such a function is necessarily of the form $f(x) = f^* + \|φ(x)\|^2$ (a nonlinear sum of squares) where $φ\colon \mathcal{M} \to \mathbb{R}^k$ is a submersion, and $k$ is the codimension of $S$ in $\mathcal{M}$. The proof hinges on showing that the end-point map of negative gradient flow on $f$ is a trivial smooth fiber bundle over $S$. This rigidity leads to a striking dichotomy. Either $S$ is diffeomorphic to a Euclidean space, in which case $f$ can be transformed into a convex quadratic by a smooth change of coordinates. Or $S$ must display genuinely exotic geometry; for example, it can be diffeomorphic to the Whitehead manifold. As a further consequence, we show that there exists a complete Riemannian metric on $\mathcal{M}$ under which $f$ remains PŁ and becomes geodesically convex.
arxiv.org
whatever man Sure let me login with wetdry world who gives a shit
Did you know? Python plotting library matplotlib uses an LP solver to figure out its subplot layouts
it's possible to have a lot of affinity for what you believe is the vast potential of AI and also understand the terrible earned reputation it has. it doesn't have to undermine your enthusiasm for it. the fact that AI enthusiasts act like it's incomprehensible is really weird, to be totally honest!
My doomer-worry about AI is not that the LLMs become omnipotent and take over the world but that the wealthy and powerful use it as a means to consolidate power and marginalize or lay off skilled workers and also everything about our technological and political and social life gets worse