De

Chasing qualia. Loving ordinary language.

[De @aVanishingCycle]

I'm De. I did my bachelor's degree somewhere in a French-speaking country. I did my M1 'Parcours Fondamentales' and M2 spécialité Géométrie Algébrique. Then I did my master's (again) in mathematical physics. And now I'm working at this company where uhm (cough cough) unlike Mr. Cox something! I'll get sued if I share anything about the company!! So let's not connect!!

[De @aVanishingCycle]

Fineee!! I'll grant the correction. AVs They tell us which structures are load-bearing. That's genuine methodological insight and I shouldn't dismiss it! But let's be precise about what "load-bearing" means here, oxymoron! In an abelian variety, the Mumford-Tate group is the load-bearing structure!! it controls the Hodge classes, it mediates the Galois action, it's the reason the conjecture reduces to something tractable!!! In a general smooth projective variety, there is no Mumford–Tate group!! There is no Galois action!! There is no CM!! The load-bearing structures of the AV case are absent by construction in the general case. So the insight "Mumford–Tate groups matter" is true and useful and also doesn't tell you what to do when there isn't one!!

[De @aVanishingCycle]

People need to understand that the gap between “Hodge for abelian varieties” and “full Hodge” is not a matter of degree!!!! it's a matter of kind!! Abelian varieties come with Mumford-Tate groups, galois representations, and that stupid cm structure that make the problem “tractable”. General smooth projective varieties have nonnnnne! (Again) None of that scaffolding. So a result for AVs would be genuinely “impressive” (sure) but it would tell us almost nothing about the general case!!! This is not a compute problem!! It's a “wait for a new daddy Grothendieck” problem!!

[Elliot Glazer @ElliotGlazer]

Appreciate you showing genuine curiosity here unlike most people I've interacted with on this issue. Part of why I started throwing large wager offers around is it was the only way to call out most of those larpers on their bluff. But since you're interested, I'll say what I can here.

Some of my info is whispers from insiders I trust, which I'm not going to repeat here. I'll rely atm on arguments that mostly do not depend on them. First off, the smart money has been that the lab rumors were regarding a new case of the Hodge Conjecture. This has been true at least since the guest post on Terry's blog on 9/11, which seems to vaguely suggest awareness such a result has been achieved. A popular interpretation in the High Math Circles is that it's hinting at Hodge for abelian varieties, and Brockman's claim of substantial progress is consistent with that [I'll explicitly say: no one I've talked to has explicitly confirmed that theory, but conversations I've had have significantly increased my credence on it].

The Information article is unlikely to have new info beyond that. The mole Palazzolo spoke to added two new things beyond the previous public record: 1) It's Hodge (duh), and 2) "We're close to solving the full thing." The latter I very strongly doubt, and sounds like the embellishment of a non-math savvy insider who heard about the substantial progress. I'm going to be very clear: Hodge for abelien varieties has long been seen as more in-reach than full Hodge and the profs I talk do not think that's substantial evidence in favor of full Hodge falling anytime soon.

Remember, many OpenAI lab employees believed and spread the originally-quiet rumor that Anthropic had fully solved two Millennium Problems, which we now can be nearly certain is false. It's fair to acknowledge that the new round of OpenAI hype is a touch more credible on the basis of "well they're closer to the source this time." But I maintain that everything we've seen is fully explainable by the same credulous insiders as the ones to blame for the last round of bullshit getting confused on how much progress the new case of Hodge is.

And my final argument: Hodge hard

[De @aVanishingCycle]

@b_n_d_l_e Exactly!! That's why I considered joining OnlyFans just to teach cohomology, assuming that's where the tech bros hang out!

[De @aVanishingCycle]

@cyb3r_17 It's an incentive problem!! The narrative serves the funding annnndd the funding shapes the narrative!! Sad

[De @aVanishingCycle]

Does the air at OpenAI taste different from what we breathe?? Or the water maybe?!? Why are people who “work” there so out of touch??! From that 20-something intern who said “math is already a mostly solved problem, there will be bigger fish to fry” to my idol saying “we have to slow down AI. The pace is insane and there's no reason to be this fast, no reason at all.” God!! The arrogance and disconnect is wild!!

[De @aVanishingCycle]

@CosplayFloorRev Exactly!!! If “math is solved” becomes the narrative, fewer people do math, fewer papers exist and the training data shrinks!!

[De @aVanishingCycle]

@derbas49 Ahhh environmental factors! That clears things up!

[De @aVanishingCycle]

@BrewMasterNull Nope! Not for sale!

[De @aVanishingCycle]

I need math to NOT be dead!!! I don't have any other talent!! I've tried painting! (I'm Dutch! I thought I had it in me!!)but… Yikesss!! So math can't be dead or I'll have to join OnlyFans and teach cohomology or quantum dynamics!!

[De @aVanishingCycle]

@MarxistsWon Erdős would've used it! Sure! But he wouldn't have confused it with someone who understands logical necessity. There's a difference between a great tool and a collaborator

[De @aVanishingCycle]

@Chancellorpen Well lens grinding skipped my generation. I got the math gene instead

[De @aVanishingCycle]

@Pirroli_ Right?? Personal experience isn't a generalization. Not relating to it doesn't make it wrong

[De @aVanishingCycle]

People dragged her for “romanticizing” uni life with €7 coffee and beautiful libraries. First of all, it's a moodboard. Second, people take pictures of things they don't want to forget why on earth would I want a picture of me crying over geometry? Last and definitely not least!! Life is so not fun!! let people be happy, as long as it's legal and they're not hurting anyone!

My uni life!

[amélie @ephhemere]

uni student life

[De @aVanishingCycle]

Can someone buy my painting for €5?! It's for Haribo!

[Antonio Lupetti @antoniolupetti]

"Discover Linear Algebra" is a free, nearly 400-page book that covers the foundations of linear algebra. It starts with systems of linear equations and matrices, then moves through matrix operations, inverses, elementary matrices, determinants, vectors and their geometry, vector spaces and subspaces, linear independence, bases and coordinates, dimension, column, row and null spaces, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, and diagonalization.

Each chapter also includes exercises to put the concepts into practice. It’s a useful resource if you’re approaching linear algebra for the first time or need a practical reference to review the fundamentals before moving on to more advanced courses.

https://t.co/mwpfFLS04r

[De @aVanishingCycle]

Okay fair! many-gods is the real objection, and AI safety isn't many gods! But but this “AI safety” has its own many-gods problem, it's just inside the “AI is dangerous” frame, so it feels like one (hypothesis) instead of many. The symmetry is still there, it's just well less visible

[De @aVanishingCycle]

I was having this conversation with a principal engineer about a certain someone who's now an “AI safety advocate” So I said “Well AI safety is just Pascal's Wager for people who can code anyway!!” He gave me the side eye.

Listen listen!!! I stand correctly!!

[De @aVanishingCycle]

@farzeenilya It's called range. Or it's called denial. I don't know

[De @aVanishingCycle]

Not a big fan of Cioran!! Every time I read him I end up arguing with him in the margins. He's way too pretentious!!

[De @aVanishingCycle]

@Fistroman1 Yes! It WAS me. I was the one in your dreams asking "why are you like this?" for six hours straight

[De @aVanishingCycle]

@festalchaos Oh come on, don't go easy on me, say it! And in my defense. I've read him in two languages, so maybe this is just a situationship?!

[De @aVanishingCycle]

@CPierre67 Je ne compte plus les fois où je regarde ça 🥰