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Chat Notebooks

writings.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: Chat Notebooks

#31

Post by bookofjoe »

stabbles wrote: post #14
electroly wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the predecessor with a notebook interface from before 1987? I'm not aware of one. Wolfram loves to claim he invented stuff but this one might actually be true. The Wikipedia article suggests a contemporary in 1987 (MathCAD) but I'm not seeing a Mathematica/Jupyter-style notebook interface before that year. That would seem to have been the year of the notebook interface, and Mathematica 1.0 did come out that ye…

Even if true it's unnecessary. I just can't read anything written by Wolfram without rolling my eyes

"Only the great are permitted great faults."—La Rochefoucauld

Re: Chat Notebooks

#32

Post by bachmeier »

DigiDigiorno wrote: post #5

While I think his notebooks and features look pretty useful, he frames the article around having invented "notebooks" 36 years ago before anyone else, and talks about other notebooks not having features that they've had since 1987. This is a pretty odd context to basically describe a new chat feature. Is this a record that should be set straight? I've used Jupyter since it was IPython notebook, but I don't think that…

This doesn't crack my list of the top 1000 programming debates, but it's not controversial to say that given that literate programming, the Smalltalk IDE, and the REPL were all around before Mathematica notebooks, they didn't bring any new ideas to the world. It may still have been an innovation to create a remix of ideas borrowed from others.

Re: Chat Notebooks

#33

Post by zaps »

nmstoker wrote: post #19
stabbles wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if true it's unnecessary. I just can't read anything written by Wolfram without rolling my eyes

Likewise. Especially when it's liberally sprinkled with his catch phrase: "A new kind of..." It's unfortunate as clearly he has a huge amount to contribute. Maybe with an LLM someone can build a de-Stepheniser that takes in his pompous, smug text and outputs something more mellow and reasonable whilst keeping all the facts, which is what we are there for after all.

A new kind of new kind

Re: Chat Notebooks

#34

Post by TeMPOraL »

jerpint wrote: post #28
connordg wrote: post #23

One of the Wolfram/Chatbook developers here. I'm happy to answer questions or accept feedback about the new functionality. We're very excited about the potential of Wolfram technology + LLMs, and we've got a number of interesting projects underway in this area. Stephen's other recent blog posts linked at the top of the Chat Notebooks post provide a nice tour. The Wolfram/Chatbook[1] package mentioned in the post is f…

What LLM are you using in the backend? Is this an openAI model or a model trained by wolfram?

With the article mentioning you need OpenAI API key, and section about personas having a screenshot of a configuration window offering you a choice between GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, I'm going to guess that this version uses, by default, the usual GPT models via OpenAI API.

Re: Chat Notebooks

#35

Post by easygenes »

digdugdirk wrote: post #26
connordg wrote: post #23

One of the Wolfram/Chatbook developers here. I'm happy to answer questions or accept feedback about the new functionality. We're very excited about the potential of Wolfram technology + LLMs, and we've got a number of interesting projects underway in this area. Stephen's other recent blog posts linked at the top of the Chat Notebooks post provide a nice tour. The Wolfram/Chatbook[1] package mentioned in the post is f…

Can this be released as a plain ipynb add-in/extension?

That’s already a thing, and works rather well: https://github.com/jupyterlab/jupyter-ai

The repo README doesn’t make it obvious how it works, but if you go to the Chat Interface portion of the docs it’s illustrated: https://jupyter-ai.readthedocs.io/en/latest/users/index.html...

Re: Chat Notebooks

#36

Post by [deleted] »

DigiDigiorno wrote: post #5

While I think his notebooks and features look pretty useful, he frames the article around having invented "notebooks" 36 years ago before anyone else, and talks about other notebooks not having features that they've had since 1987. This is a pretty odd context to basically describe a new chat feature. Is this a record that should be set straight? I've used Jupyter since it was IPython notebook, but I don't think that…

[deleted]

Re: Chat Notebooks

#37

Post by lmeyerov »

b215826 wrote: post #25
DigiDigiorno wrote: post #5

While I think his notebooks and features look pretty useful, he frames the article around having invented "notebooks" 36 years ago before anyone else, and talks about other notebooks not having features that they've had since 1987. This is a pretty odd context to basically describe a new chat feature. Is this a record that should be set straight? I've used Jupyter since it was IPython notebook, but I don't think that…

Notebooks are just glorified REPLs, and they've been around since the early days of Lisp.

Winner!

Re: Chat Notebooks

#38

Post by rvcdbn »

relaytheurgency wrote: post #11
burkaman wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like it's debatable depending on your definition of "notebook": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notebook_interface#History But also, even if it's true, it's kind of an offputting way to start the article. I know that's his thing and I know it's discussed every time one of these is posted here so apologies for the repetitive observation.

Very off putting. I hate to admit that I stopped reading afterward. I don't like to be that way, but there's a lot to read out here.

If it makes you feel any better, same.

Re: Chat Notebooks

#39

Post by hliyan »

Yhippa wrote: post #3

I love the concept of notebooks (as referred to in this article). It reminds me of the way HyperCard made it very easy for non-techies to create something that looks great to share out with the world. I'm honestly surprised nobody else has exploited this functionality before!

I believe PowerPoint simply buried many better ways of presenting bytesized information chunks to the world. It prioritized the author's laziness over audience comprehension.

Re: Chat Notebooks

#40

Post by akiselev »

zaps wrote: post #33
nmstoker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise. Especially when it's liberally sprinkled with his catch phrase: "A new kind of..." It's unfortunate as clearly he has a huge amount to contribute. Maybe with an LLM someone can build a de-Stepheniser that takes in his pompous, smug text and outputs something more mellow and reasonable whilst keeping all the facts, which is what we are there for after all.

A new kind of new kind

Not even typeclasses are safe from Wolfram!
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