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Prism

openai.com

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Re: Prism

#281

Post by BlueTemplar »

vicapow wrote: post #35
vitalnodo wrote: post #2

Previously, this existed as crixet.com [0]. At some point it used WASM for client-side compilation, and later transitioned to server-side rendering [1][2]. It now appears that there will be no option to disable AI [3]. I hope the core features remain available and won’t be artificially restricted. Compared to Overleaf, there were fewer service limitations: it was possible to compile more complex documents, share proj…

The deeper I got, the more I realized really supporting the entire LaTeX toolchain in WASM would mean simulating an entire linux distribution :( We wanted to support Beamer, LuaLaTeX, mobile (wasn't working with WASM because of resource limits), etc.

But what's the point ?

To end up with yet another shitty (because running inside a browser, in particular its interface) web app ?

Why not focus efforts into making a proper program (you know, with IBM menu bars and keyboard shortcuts), but with collaborative tools too ?

Re: Prism

#282

Post by Ronsenshi »

falcor84 wrote: post #124

It seems clear to me that this is about OpenAI getting telemetry and other training data with the intent of having their AI do scientific work independently down the line, and I'm very ambivalent about it.

Just more coal to the hype-train - AI companies can't afford news cycle without anything AI. Stock prices must grow!

Re: Prism

#283

Post by jmdaly »

jasonfarnon wrote: post #224
nemomarx wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a common AI tool produces latex documents, the association will be created yeah. Right now latex would be a high indicator of manual effort, right?

don't think so. I think latex was one of academics' earlier use cases of chatgpt, back in 2023. That's when I started noticing tables in every submitted paper looking way more sophisticated than they ever did. (The other early use case of course being grammar/spelling. Overnight everyone got fluent and typos disappeared.)

It's funny, I was reading a bunch of recent papers not long ago (I haven't been in academia in over a decade) and I was really impressed with the quality of the writing in most of them. I guess in some cases LLMs are the reason for that!

Re: Prism

#284

Post by rockskon »

Naming their tool after the program where private companies run searches on behalf of and give resulting customer data to the NSA....was certainly a choice.

Re: Prism

#285

Post by i000 »

JBorrow wrote: post #32

From my perspective as a journal editor and a reviewer these kinds of tools cause many more problems than they actually solve. They make the 'barrier to entry' for submitting vibed semi-plausible journal articles much lower, which I understand some may see as a benefit. The drawback is that scientific editors and reviewers provide those services for free, as a community benefit. One example was a submission their und…

Perhaps the real issue is the gate-keeping scientific publishing model. Journals had a place and role, and peer-review is a critical aspect of the scientific process but new times (internet, citizien science, higher levels of scientific literacy, and now AI) diminish the benefits of journals creating "barriers to entry" as you put it.

Re: Prism

#287

Post by jonas_kgomo »

I actually found it quite robinhood for openai to acqhire, bascially this startup was my favourite thing for the past few months, but they were experiencing server overload and other issues on reliability, i think openai taking them under their wing is a good/neutral storyline. I think its net good for science given the opai toolchain

Re: Prism

#288

Post by bwfan123 »

trees101 wrote: post #236
cryzinger wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More relevant than ever: > The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law

The P≠NP conjecture in CS says checking a solution is easier than finding one. Verifying a Sudoku is fast; solving it from scratch is hard. But Brandolini's Law says the opposite: refuting bullshit costs way more than producing it. Not actually contradictory. Verification is cheap when there's a spec to check against. 'Valid Sudoku?' is mechanical. But 'good paper?' has no spec. That's judgment, not verification.

producing BS can be equated to generating statements without caring for their truth value. Generating them is easy. Refuting them requires one to find a proof or a contradiction which is a lot of work, and is equal to "solving" the statement. As an analogy, refuting BS is like solving satisfiability, whereas generating BS is like generating propositions.

Re: Prism

#289

Post by biophysboy »

direwolf20 wrote: post #263
raincole wrote: post #256

I know many people have negative opinions about this. I'd also like to share what I saw. Since GPT-4o became a thing, everyone who submits academic papers I know in my non-english speaking country (N > 5) has been writing papers in our native language and translating them with GPT-4o exclusively . It has been the norm for quite a while. If hallucination is such a serious problem it has been so for one and half a year…

Translation is something Large Language Models are inherently pretty good at, without controversy, even though the output still should be independently verified. It's a language task and they are language models.

Are they good at translating scientific jargon specific to a niche within a field? I have no doubt LLMs are excellent at translating well-trodden patterns; I'm a bit suspicious otherwise..

Re: Prism

#290

Post by desolate_muffin »

i000 wrote: post #285
JBorrow wrote: post #32

From my perspective as a journal editor and a reviewer these kinds of tools cause many more problems than they actually solve. They make the 'barrier to entry' for submitting vibed semi-plausible journal articles much lower, which I understand some may see as a benefit. The drawback is that scientific editors and reviewers provide those services for free, as a community benefit. One example was a submission their und…

Perhaps the real issue is the gate-keeping scientific publishing model. Journals had a place and role, and peer-review is a critical aspect of the scientific process but new times (internet, citizien science, higher levels of scientific literacy, and now AI) diminish the benefits of journals creating "barriers to entry" as you put it.

I for one hope not to live in a world where academic journals fall out of favor and are replaced by vibe-coded papers by citizen scientists with inflated egos from one too many “you’re absolutely right!” Claude responses.
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