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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

#131

Post by whywhywhywhy »

laserbeam wrote: post #98
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 to keep them from the general public Within science, participants have always published descriptions of methodology and results for review and replication. Within the same science, participants have never made access to laboratories free for everyone. You get blueprints for how to build a lab and what to do in it, you don't get the building. Same for computation. I'm fairly sure almost…

This is why the incoming generation of AI engineers organizing autonomously and openly on git etc will decimate the dusty locked away AI academia generation.

The concept of heavy gatekeeping and attribution chasing seems asinine as knowledge generation and sharing isn't metered.

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

#133

Post by seabass-labrax »

stared wrote: post #130

Either I miss something, or is it yet another marketing approach by Stephen Wolfram? The post talks about "foundation tool", yet it offers an MCP to a proprietary app (out of miriads of such). Sure, as any other tech, Mathematica may have its edges (I used it deeply 10-15 years ago, before I migrated to Python/Jupyter Notebook ecosystem). But in the grand scheme of things, it is yet another tech, and one that is losi…

Stephen Wolfram doesn't claim that Mathematica is a "new kind of science"; that's the slogan he uses instead to refer to the theoretical physics model (one based on state transitions) that underpins his 'Wolfram Physics Project'.

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

#134

Post by squeefers »

laserbeam wrote: post #98
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 to keep them from the general public Within science, participants have always published descriptions of methodology and results for review and replication. Within the same science, participants have never made access to laboratories free for everyone. You get blueprints for how to build a lab and what to do in it, you don't get the building. Same for computation. I'm fairly sure almost…

> Same for computation....You just don't get the implementation for free.

software packages arent computation... whilst software takes time and effort (and money) to make, the finished product is virtually free to store and distribute. i see it similarly against the spirit of science. how is there more free software in the laymen space?

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

#135

Post by squeefers »

jadbox wrote: post #22
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.

I'm fairly certain Stephen Wolfram will be one of the few intellectuals today that will still be remembered in 50 years.

he seems to be a good software engineer at least, but what about his science? does it all revolve around re-modelling the universe in his software?

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

#136

Post by squeefers »

fragmede wrote: post #93
Micoloth wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a great question. As soneone who has been fascinated by Wolfram Aplha for a loong time (and might or might not have thought about cloning it), i think that growing up i ended up realizing that Mathematica in the real world just doesn’t… Do much? Maybe i’m just missing something. But it looks like nobody is really using it except for some very specific math research which has grown from within that ecosystem from…

What you're missing is everything not on the public Internet. Everything hidden away from you and me. Everything done in secret. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there, does it make a sound?

but in general... what?

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

#137

Post by stared »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #133
stared wrote: post #130

Either I miss something, or is it yet another marketing approach by Stephen Wolfram? The post talks about "foundation tool", yet it offers an MCP to a proprietary app (out of miriads of such). Sure, as any other tech, Mathematica may have its edges (I used it deeply 10-15 years ago, before I migrated to Python/Jupyter Notebook ecosystem). But in the grand scheme of things, it is yet another tech, and one that is losi…

Stephen Wolfram doesn't claim that Mathematica is a "new kind of science"; that's the slogan he uses instead to refer to the theoretical physics model (one based on state transitions) that underpins his 'Wolfram Physics Project'.

This I know - it was a tongue on check to the claim on „foundational models”.

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

#138

Post by squeefers »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #125
vixen99 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'I live in a country where guaranteed health care is part of the constitution.' In the light of ' Almost half of the 6 million people needing treatment from the NHS in England have had no further care at all since joining a hospital waiting list, new data reveals. Previously unseen NHS England figures show that 2.99 million of the 6.23 million patients (48%) awaiting care have not had either their first appointment w…

Britain has always had challenges, and the side-effects manifest in predictable ways. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdVB-R6Duso Over a human lifetime, the immediate economic decisions do change macroeconomic postures. For example, consider variable costs of dental services for braces, fillings, crowns, root canals, extraction, bone loss, dentures, and supporting pharmaceuticals/radiology. Then consider a one-time s…

the historically underfunded NHS took a massive hit to its funding at the start of the credit crunch, and then again in covid. neither cut was restored, whilst patient numbers have steadily risen (UK needs population growth to fuel property prices to avoid recession - 20% of gdp is construction).

people are dying because hospitals cant afford to operate. getting deals on volume purchases is irrelevant

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

#139

Post by FrustratedMonky »

simianwords wrote: post #87
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,…

>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. False. It has nothing to do with tool use but just reasoning.

What is reasoning?

I also can not multiply large numbers without a paper and pencil, and following an algorithm learned in school.

That is the same as an LLM running some python, is the same as me following instructions to perform multiplication.

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

#140

Post by owlbite »

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…

I think the current generation of tools have a long way to go before I trust any numerical algorithm they implement, based on our recent experiments trying to make it implement some linear algebra by calling LAPACK. When we asked it to write some sparse linear algebra code based on some more obscure graph algorithms it produced some ugly stepchild of dijkstra's algorithm instead, which needless to say did not achieve the desired aim.
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