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Making Wolfram tech available as a foundation tool for LLM systems

writings.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: Making Wolfram tech available as a foundation tool for LLM systems

#51

Post by bandrami »

mr_mitm wrote: post #11
skolos wrote: post #8

I like Mathematica and use it regularly. But I did not see any benefits of using it over python as a tool that Claude Code can use. Every script it produced in wolfram was slower with worse answers than python. Wolfram people are really trying but so far the results are not very good.

Back when I was using it, mathematica was unmatched in its ability to find integrals. Has python caught up there?

It's symbolics capabilities are still really good, though in my totally subjective opinion not as good as Maxima's.

Re: Making Wolfram tech available as a foundation tool for LLM systems

#52

Post by DiggyJohnson »

falcor84 wrote: post #47
fragmede wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> against the spirit of science Unfortunately, the bank doesn't accept spirit of science dollars, and neither does the restaurant down the street from me either.

What does this have to do with anything? We as a culture decided that science is worthwhile, and that it's worth funding it with public money, which I personally strongly support. With that in mind, I want us to continue contributing to making scientific research and the benefits that it provides to be disseminated freely, while also paying good scientists with actual dollars that they could spend in restaurants.

Individuals and small groups make decisions in their own interest. The same is not true of society. That’s the issue that the GP is asking you to respond to

Re: Making Wolfram tech available as a foundation tool for LLM systems

#53

Post by Recursing »

snowhale wrote: post #49
ddp26 wrote: post #24

I tried using wolfram alpha as a tool for an llm research agent, and I couldn't find any tasks it could solve with it, that it couldn't solve with just Google and Python.

[dead]

sympy and similar packages can handle the vast majority of simple cases

Re: Making Wolfram tech available as a foundation tool for LLM systems

#55

Post by lutusp »

Imagine Isaac Newton (and/or Gottfried Leibniz) saying, "Today we're announcing the availability of new mathematical tools -- contact our marketing specialists now!"

The linked article isn't about mathematics, technology or human knowledge. It's about marketing. It can only exist in a kind of late-stage capitalism where enshittification is either present or imminent.

And I have to say ... Stephen Wolfram's compulsion to name things after himself, then offer them for sale, reminds me of ... someone else. Someone even more shamelessly self-promoting.

Newton didn't call his baby "Newton-tech", he called it Fluxions. Leibniz called his creation Calculus. It didn't occur to either of them to name their work after themselves. That would have been embarrassing and unseemly. But ... those were different times.

Imagine Jonas Salk naming his creation Salk-tech, then offering it for sale, at a time when 50,000 people were stricken with Polio every year. What a missed opportunity! What a sucker! (Salk gave his vaccine away, refusing the very idea of a patent.)

Right now it's hard to tell, but there's more to life than grabbing a brass ring.

Re: Making Wolfram tech available as a foundation tool for LLM systems

#56

Post by omegadynamics »

fragmede wrote: post #45
Davidzheng wrote: post #40

There's a lot of value in the implementation of many strong and fast algeorithms in computer algebra in proprietary tools such as Maple, Wolfram, Matlab. However, I (though of course believe that such work needs to be compensated) find it against the spirit of science to keep them from the general public. I think it would be good service to use AI tools to bring open source alternatives like sympy and sage and macaul…

> against the spirit of science Unfortunately, the bank doesn't accept spirit of science dollars, and neither does the restaurant down the street from me either.

the ticker is $SOS

Re: Making Wolfram tech available as a foundation tool for LLM systems

#57

Post by bryanrasmussen »

falcor84 wrote: post #47
fragmede wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> against the spirit of science Unfortunately, the bank doesn't accept spirit of science dollars, and neither does the restaurant down the street from me either.

What does this have to do with anything? We as a culture decided that science is worthwhile, and that it's worth funding it with public money, which I personally strongly support. With that in mind, I want us to continue contributing to making scientific research and the benefits that it provides to be disseminated freely, while also paying good scientists with actual dollars that they could spend in restaurants.

>We as a culture decided that science is worthwhile, and that it's worth funding it with public money, which I personally strongly support.

what country are you in, and what percentage of the public purse goes to funding science? In the U.S about 11%, and with that number I often read articles, linked to from this site, about U.S Scientists quitting and going into private sector work or other non-scientific fields to get adequate compensation.

>while also paying good scientists with actual dollars that they could spend in restaurants.

see, my admittedly vague understanding of how things are structured tells me this part isn't what is happening.

Re: Making Wolfram tech available as a foundation tool for LLM systems

#58

Post by pcj-github »

The blog post would have been more effective with a specific example of what it solves, a demo, or at least some anecdotes of what this has already solved via these integrations. As it stands, it comes off rather self-aggrandizing and a bit desperate, as though Wolfram tech perceives itself as threatened to remain relevant.

Re: Making Wolfram tech available as a foundation tool for LLM systems

#59

Post by falcor84 »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #52
falcor84 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this have to do with anything? We as a culture decided that science is worthwhile, and that it's worth funding it with public money, which I personally strongly support. With that in mind, I want us to continue contributing to making scientific research and the benefits that it provides to be disseminated freely, while also paying good scientists with actual dollars that they could spend in restaurants.

Individuals and small groups make decisions in their own interest. The same is not true of society. That’s the issue that the GP is asking you to respond to

I suppose I might not be understanding your and the GP's intent correctly, but I thought that the question was based on the following sentences:

> I think it would be good service to use AI tools to bring open source alternatives like sympy and sage and macaulay to par.

> It would be really nice to have better software written by strong software engineers who also understands the maths for mathematicians.

And my response is that I think that this sort of work, which is in the public scientific interest should be funded by tax money, and the results distributed under libre licenses.

Re: Making Wolfram tech available as a foundation tool for LLM systems

#60

Post by jazzyjackson »

falcor84 wrote: post #47
fragmede wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> against the spirit of science Unfortunately, the bank doesn't accept spirit of science dollars, and neither does the restaurant down the street from me either.

What does this have to do with anything? We as a culture decided that science is worthwhile, and that it's worth funding it with public money, which I personally strongly support. With that in mind, I want us to continue contributing to making scientific research and the benefits that it provides to be disseminated freely, while also paying good scientists with actual dollars that they could spend in restaurants.

So if as a culture we decide scientists are worth paying to do research, why should Wolfram not be paid to build the tool scientists use?
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