L. Tao on LLMs

I am being systematically cancelled on HN (as if I am a fucking russian – I am NOT – or something), but sometimes it feels ridiculous. LLM don’t “do maths” by definition (which in this context is the code). LLM “predict” the next symbol after “2+2=” and separately and independently (in principle) predict token-by-token of why that is true. There is absolutely no “reasoning” or “understanding” of any kind whatsoever, just as a parrot would do. ...

June 13, 2024 · <lngnmn2@yahoo.com>

The "quant" memes from books and movies.

Who haven’t seen the famous meme-movies about the markets? “The Big Shot”, “The Margin Call” and, of course, “The Wolf of Wall Street” (in which, remarkably, there were no mathematical models involved – just plain old bullshitting). And, when we saw that guy, the second place on a math Olympiad, we probably felt a pang of pain and regret. That could have been me. Math, it turns out, is not that complicated after all. ...

June 11, 2024 · <lngnmn2@yahoo.com>

Dopamine hacks

Psychology is a very serious “thing”. Some unfortunate people spend most of their “energy” struggling with their own (unwanted. overwhelming) emotional states, like tension, /anxiety stress and so on. We cannot change ourselves. but we can accept what we are and try to develop (Know Thyself, you know) and apply some hacks, just like that “Emotional Intelligence” meme. Acknowledging and accepting ourselves as we are is the first necessary (but not sufficient) step. ...

June 7, 2024 · <lngnmn2@yahoo.com>

Attention Is All bullshit.

Once again I tried to through This meme video. Once again with the same results. I have seen these social patterns many times before – when people begin to use ill-defined, anthropomorphic and purely abstract concepts to construct familiar analogies and to invoke intuitions, so everything seems “right” and “logical”. Abidharma uses abstract terminology to produce a seemingly coherent system. It started from very reasonable abstractions of The Buddha, which illustrated his ideas with abstract notions like pealing off layers of an onion (to find literally nothing in the center) or a mixture of spices using for cooking, but very quickly went all to pure abstract bullshit. ...

June 4, 2024 · <lngnmn2@yahoo.com>

Vedanta

It is time to publish some more results. Type-level reasoning A function application - corresponds to /Modus Ponens/ A specialization, an instance of it. > ($) :: (a -> b) -> a -> b > ($) f x = f x Reversed order of agreements, still the same /Modus Ponens/ > (|>) :: a -> (a -> b) -> b > (|>) x f = f x "Multi-argument" is just /currying/ -- ~* ->*->*-> *~ Same, but with an explicit /abstraction barrier/ (and /lifting/) > (>>=) :: m a -> (a -> m b) -> m b > (>>=) ma f = undefined -- has to be defined for each particular type (an instance) Notice that this is essentially a type-signature of ~fmap~, > fmap :: f a ->(a->b) -> f b with a reversed order of arguments and a specialized function. which corresponds to a /Kleisli arrow/. Notice also that ~($)~ and ~fmap~ differs only in having an explicit /container/. This is not an arbitrary coincidence. All three are essentially the same, despite funny syntax. A basic step of logical deduction. Behind an abstraction barrier. Composition - of functions > (.) :: (b -> c) -> (a -> b) -> a -> c > (.) f g = \x -> f (g x) - of "actions" (actual functions have to use ~return :: a -> m a~) > (<=<) :: Monad m => (b -> m c) -> (a -> m b) -> a -> m c > (<=<) f g = undefined -- has to be defined for each particular type or ~(>>=)~ for chaining ("flat" nesting or pipelining ) , exactly the same as ~(|>)~ Notice that the composition is /nesting/. This is the /only/ way to implement it. The end of knowledge.

May 27, 2024 · &lt;lngnmn2@yahoo.com&gt;

On Python

Python is eating the word. When I type “Python” on the Library Genesis search prompt I’m getting some 300 pages (7628 files found | showing results from 1 to 25). This has to be bullshit. Arguably, the mass hysteria has started when MIT switched from the classic MIT Scheme to Python as its main teaching language. The AIMA code at Berkeley has been ported from Common Lisp to Python at about the same time. ...

May 25, 2024 · &lt;lngnmn2@yahoo.com&gt;

LLM Philosophy 101

The LLM mania is still going on, with no sign of bursting of the bubble. This will be (already is) way larger than even the DotCom bubble. Grab your popcorn. I already wrote this on the old site, and, of course, because I haven’t followed the rules I got “canceled” as they do nowadays with anyone who disagree with their current set of beliefs. Lets talk it again, even with millions of views behind each Karpathy or Friendman videos. ...

May 21, 2024 · &lt;lngnmn2@yahoo.com&gt;

Going full Steppenwolf

I created for myself the meme Going Full Gogans (you know) which is, literally, what one should do in order to achieve anything slightly above mediocrity. To go “higher” one has to Go Full Steppenwolf. which means to fully embrace and stick to the classics, ignoring everything “modern” as one ignores “user-defined genders and pronouns”. By “classics” I mean just a few distinct well-established traditions and related cultures. The LISP tradition, with distinct MIT Scheme, Norvig and Graham books, and later Clojure cultures. The CLU and of Barbara Liskov tradition and a related subculture based on the books. The ML tradition, with SML, Ocaml, F#, Scala (reaction to Java – the monument to human stupidity) cultures. The Miranda and Haskell, tradition and all the one-man’s pure language subcultures and books. The Erlang tradition (principle-guided, well-researched commercial successin telecoms). The GNU Emacs tradition, can be traced back to the sanity of the MIT CSAIL. The Python tradition of attention to details and of striving to do things just right (for an interpreter). The Go tradition (Bell labs, Plan9, UTF-8, Inferno, the Go standard library, C.A.R Hoare concurrency primitives). The Ada tradition, as of an academic imperative language – sane and “safe”. The Rust tradition, as the reaction to the C++ – humiliation to the human intelligence. Except for Rust, which is too new, the above mentioned constitute the Golden Age of Programming (forever lost). ...

May 16, 2024 · &lt;lngnmn2@yahoo.com&gt;

On complexity

Trying to understand complex social systems was my favorite timepass. I went through Eastern philosophy and religions. algorithmic trading, Informix system administration and functional programming. of course. I am a FreeBSD and Gentoo addict too. I almost always compile my stuff from sources (so I know all the dependencies by heart). In particular, Eastern Philosophy (the Early Upanishads and Early Buddhism) helped me to sort out what the current AI tools can achieve and what they cannot do in principle (and I showed why). This is my major achievement so far. ...

May 14, 2024 · &lt;lngnmn2@yahoo.com&gt;

Why monads?

You probably have already read things like “Async computations form a Monad” or something like that. Did you ever ask yourself why would they? Here are the answers for you. Have you ever seen that kind of device in some chemical and physics labs – a glass wall, with two holes in it which have a pair of thick gloves attached to them, to reach inside? A person put his hands into these gloves and reach into a contained and sealed compartment (environment) and is able to perform some tasks, like moving and filling things inside. ...

May 4, 2024 · &lt;lngnmn2@yahoo.com&gt;