One way to cope with the current situation as a mathematician: understand the mathematics of transformers, the driver of LLMs. arxiv.org/abs/2312.10794

A mathematical perspective on Transformers

Transformers play a central role in the inner workings of large language models. We develop a mathematical framework for analyzing Transformers based on their interpretation as interacting particle sy...

arxiv.org

To go from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse to the Matrix should give everyone hope that your career can improve. Today’s job is not your identity.

Westerns & the Old West@davidlambertart.bsky.social · 6d ago

Happy 65th Birthday to Laurence Fishburne

I personally know these people, this is legit. A small org for continuing financial, organizational and legal support for making some of the independent quantum conferences run.

International Association for Quantum Information@iaqi.bsky.social · 6d ago

Let's have a community discussion about the impact of LLMs on quantum information research, and how to react to it as a research community! 👩‍🔬⚛️🤖 🏛️ Head over to the IAQI forum 👇 discuss.iaqi.org/t/quantum-in... 🦋 Please share widely!

Let's have a community discussion about the impact of LLMs on quantum information research, and how to react to it as a research community! 👩‍🔬⚛️🤖 🏛️ Head over to the IAQI forum 👇 discuss.iaqi.org/t/quantum-in... 🦋 Please share widely!

Quantum Information Processing research in the age of AI

Dear colleagues, Over the past weeks there have been more and more results in which AI models played a crucial role, not only in mathematics and theoretical computer science, but right at the heart o...

discuss.iaqi.org

Film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney, or Ghibli.

Jack Black's Crazy Dance in High Fidelity

Alt: Jack Black's Crazy Dance in High Fidelity

static.klipy.com

gene rayburn@generayburn.com · last wk.

Film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney, or Ghibli.

I tend to agree with Tobias. It will be interesting to see near-term changes in the valuation of certain aspects of research. An important problem I see is who can afford access to frontier models and how the scientific community should address this. tjoresearchnotes.wordpress.com/2026/07/28/p...

Proof inflation

I have been thinking a lot about how social dynamics are going to shift in the new era of cognitive abundance. I don’t pretend to have any kind of crystal ball, but there are numerous histori…

tjoresearchnotes.wordpress.com

Some good personal news in these strange and turbulent times: I was just promoted to Associate Professor on indefinite Tenure, effective Aug 16 🥲 Immensely grateful to everyone who helped me get here - I won't list them since they know who they are 😊

Michael Scott's Dancinha Dance

ALT: Michael Scott's Dancinha Dance

static.klipy.com

There may be, and there is, a debate to have about the use of AI in research, in maths, in society. Using it as "an oracle to put words in the mouth of dead people" is not part of that, and is (IMO) absolutely insane to use one's platform to the community for that.

Elvis actually never existed.

James McLeod@jamespmcleod.ca · 2w ago

It's safe to assume that all major LLMs are scraping Bluesky data to train future models. As an open protocol, Bluesky is one of the few sources of fresh human-generated content that anybody can gobble up. So all this is probably going in the models. There are submarines in the Great Lakes.

2026 Fields Medalists: Yu Deng (University of Chicago) John Pardon (State University of New York Stony Brook) Jacob Tsimerman (University of Toronto) Hong Wang (New York University and IHES) www.mathunion.org/imu-awards/f...

I do not think that relegating research work to an LLM is the same as giving a research idea to a student. The latter involves mentoring, which is an integral part of our work as advisors. (I've heard this argument a lot in discussions with colleagues about the use of LLMs in research.)

Another aspect of this is that certain academic institutions with the necessary resources are making LLMs freely accessible for their staff and students, which will further aggravate the existing inequality in the academic landscape.

Francesco Anna Mele@francescoannamele.bsky.social · 2w ago

Sadly, unless you pay $200 per month (230 EUR if you’re European 🙂), you’re no longer as competitive in quantum info theory (as I guess in any applied-math topic).

In recent times far too many colleagues start discussions about LLMs and the future of math and related fields. I've always taken the stance that mathematical research is more than just a giant list of open problems to be solved.* @amkasprzyk.bsky.social finds a great way of framing this 👇

Alexander Kasprzyk@amkasprzyk.bsky.social · 2w ago

I’m not disagreeing with you Pieter, but we don’t need an LLM to tell us that the dim >= 3 case wasn’t well studied. The people doing the work have already written this. The real “problem” (if it is one) is that as a community we make a huge fuss over these questions, raising them to mythical…

I’m not disagreeing with you Pieter, but we don’t need an LLM to tell us that the dim >= 3 case wasn’t well studied. The people doing the work have already written this. The real “problem” (if it is one) is that as a community we make a huge fuss over these questions, raising them to mythical…

Group photo from "Additivity Problems in Quantum and Classical Information Theory" in Banff, Canada www.birs.ca/workshops/20...

📢 Fully-funded 3-year PhD in my Quantum Randomness Group @ Uni Cologne as part of our QuantERA consortium: benchmarking, characterization, and learning on bosonic quantum computers. Deadline 12 Aug 2026. More info: www.quantum-randomness.com/joinus #PhD #Quantum #QuantERA

We're pleased to announce the key dates for QIP 2027, as follows (refer to the website qipconference.org/2027/ for up-to-date information). We look forward to your participation!

Hey y’all, we have one week left to submit comments about The Regime implementing political review of grants, which would harm us all. For more information about submitting a comment or writing to your elected officials, Defend Public Health has a step by step guide for you right here.

Critical action needed: Stop OMB's political review of federal grants | Defend Public Health

A proposed rule from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) seeks to take expert review of federal grants out of the hands of experts and put it into the hands of political appointees. This rule co...

defendpublichealth.org

Great interview (in German) with Ignacio Cirac about the current state of quantum information science. IMO Cirac is exceptionally good at giving a realistic overview of the current state, without fueling the hype, yet highlighting interesting applications. www.derstandard.at/story/300000...

Physiker Cirac: "Quantencomputer müssen nicht fehlerfrei sein"

Der spanische Quantenforscher Ignacio Cirac will nicht auf den perfekten Quantencomputer warten. Bei speziellen Problemen kann die Technologie heute schon nützlich sein

derstandard.at

This is how we're hunting. They're lucky they don't need to hunt their own food.

Wow great goal from 🇯🇵! I really like how they're playing today

You've led your last zeppelin

Spencer Bagley@sbagley.bsky.social · last mo.

You've imagined your last dragon

The goal was to expose them to some of the quantum nonsense that's out there (thank you @dulwichquantum.bsky.social), help them understand the incentives of all the parties involved, and teach them critical thinking skills. I hope this will be helpful in their future careers!

If you want to cosplay a mathematician it's the same but you open a TeX file.

KJ Charles@kjcharleswriter.com · 2mo ago

Just a thought but if all you want to do is cosplay being a novelist, you don't need AI. Just put on your crappest sweatshirt, make a cup of tea, open Word to a blank page, then go on Bluesky for the rest of the day, and you're sorted.

many-body physics

"Every child who starves to death is murdered." RIP Jean Ziegler

In the AI future we will have neural networks installed directly in our brains!

I signed this today. I'm sceptical of the blind trust of people in LLMs, and I don't think LLMs will replace me as a researcher, teacher, and mentor. At the same time, I want to be open to new technologies and see whether and how we can use them fruitfully in our research and teaching.

Michael Barany@mjb.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 2mo ago

Since September I've been working with an international group to develop what we hope can be a response from the mathematics community to artificial intelligence in maths. The Leiden Declaration is now posted and open for signatures: https://leidendeclaration.ai/ #LeidenDeclaration

Since September I've been working with an international group to develop what we hope can be a response from the mathematics community to artificial intelligence in maths. The Leiden Declaration is now posted and open for signatures: https://leidendeclaration.ai/ #LeidenDeclaration

Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics

This declaration calls for action to address the challenges posed by the use of artificial intelligence within mathematics research.

leidendeclaration.ai

A warm welcome from the organisers of QIP 2027! The conference will take place February 20-26 at the National University of Singapore. For up-to-date information, check out the website: qipconference.org/2027/