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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

#71

Post by mr_mitm »

lioeters wrote: post #37
nphardon wrote: post #15

There's a great discussion with Stephen Wolfram on the Sean Carroll podcast. Listening to it made me think very highly of Wolfram. He's a free thinking, eccentric, mathematician, scientist; who got started doing serious work at a very young age. He still has a youthful creative approach to thought and science. I hope LLMs do pair well with his tools.

To save others a search, here's the podcast with Wolfram. Stephen Wolfram on Computation, Hypergraphs, and Fundamental Physics - https://podbay.fm/p/sean-carrolls-mindscape-science-society-... (2hr 40min) I'm a fan of his work and person too. Not a fanatic or evangelical level, but I do think he's one of the more historically relevant computer scientists and philosophers working today. I can overlook his occasional a…

Sean also publishes transcripts of all episodes; https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2021/07/12/155-...

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

#72

Post by adius »

danpalmer wrote: post #64

LLMs using code to answer questions is nothing new, it's why the "how many Rs in strawberry" question doesn't trip them up anymore, because they can write a few lines of Python to answer it, run that, and return the answer. Mathematica / Wolfram Language as the basis for this isn't bad (it's arguably late), because it's a highly integrated system with, in theory, a lot of consistency. It should work well. That said,…

I also think that sandboxing is crucial. That’s why I’m working on a Wolfram Language interpreter that can be run fully sandboxed via WebAssembly: https://github.com/ad-si/Woxi

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

#73

Post by cornholio »

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.

The obvious use case here is deep mathematical research, where the LLM can focus its reasoning on higher level concepts.

For example, if it can reduce parts of the problem to some choices of polinomials, its useful to just "know" instantly which choice has real solutions, instead of polluting its context window with python syntax, Google results etc.

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

#77

Post by yorwba »

adius wrote: post #70

I agree, but to be truly foundational, it needs to be open source and accessible for everyone! That’s why I’m working on an open source implementation of Mathematica (i.e. an Wolfram Language interpreter): https://github.com/ad-si/Woxi

Isn't most of the value of Mathematica in the standard library instead of the language?

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

#78

Post by [deleted] »

oefrha wrote: post #65
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.

Society already funds a lot of scientific research. Some of that funding currently goes to private pockets like Wolfram Research, who license out their proprietary tech under expensive and highly limiting licenses (they're licensed per CPU core, Oracle style), so that scientists can do scientific computing. As a former Mathematica user, a good part of the core functionality is great and ahead of open source, the rest…

[deleted]

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

#79

Post by kgwgk »

oefrha wrote: post #65
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.

Society already funds a lot of scientific research. Some of that funding currently goes to private pockets like Wolfram Research, who license out their proprietary tech under expensive and highly limiting licenses (they're licensed per CPU core, Oracle style), so that scientists can do scientific computing. As a former Mathematica user, a good part of the core functionality is great and ahead of open source, the rest…

> Some of that funding currently goes to private pockets

Most (all?) of that funding goes to private pockets: researchers work for money, equipment costs money, etc.

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

#80

Post by PeterStuer »

oefrha wrote: post #65
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.

Society already funds a lot of scientific research. Some of that funding currently goes to private pockets like Wolfram Research, who license out their proprietary tech under expensive and highly limiting licenses (they're licensed per CPU core, Oracle style), so that scientists can do scientific computing. As a former Mathematica user, a good part of the core functionality is great and ahead of open source, the rest…

Academic institutions have internal IP scouting monitoring every lab for monetizable research.

On top of that, and often competing with the former, professors are constantly exploring (heavily subsidized with public grants and staffed with free grad students) spin-offs to funnel any commercial potential of their research into their own or their buddie's pockets. It's just like in politics with revolving doors and plushy 'speaking engagements' or 'board seats' galore.

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