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Wolfram Alpha and ChatGPT

writings.stephenwolfram.com

81–90 of 309 posts

Re: Wolfram Alpha and ChatGPT

#81
post #71

This couldn’t be a more definitive comparison of what ChatGPT isn’t good at. WolframAlpha was released in 2009 but why isn’t it getting the same sexy accolades and valuation as ChatGPT?

Because most people have no clue it exists. I became aware of it in university and use it for all kinds of queries all the time. There's things made for Google and things made for WA. And now there's things made for ChatGPT. But lots of techies hate WA and so there's not much word of mouth for it outside of academia.

Also most people want funny stuff, like writing jokes or songs, they don't actually want useful information, so chatgpt gives them that. If the internet didn't exist everyone would think it'd be used for research and learning primarily, and mostly it's used for porn and cat videos. It's just what people enjoy.

Re: Wolfram Alpha and ChatGPT

#82
post #34

I think ChatGPT is pretty neat but I was somewhat less impressed than everyone else is with the code generation. I actually agree with Wolfram for a change; being human like isn’t always “good”. For example, I asked ChatGPT to give me a proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem in Isabelle/Isar. It quickly gave me some very pretty Isar code, and I was extremely impressed. Until I tried actually inputting it into Isabelle, and n…

I saw this as well for Front-end code too. For basic HTML it was spot-on if not a little weird at times in naming. Once you give it complex tasks in a JS framework and mix in things like Tailwind it tended to just do weird things that, even if they did work, were generally bad practice for performance (DOM manipulation) or just needlessly lengthty.

Re: Wolfram Alpha and ChatGPT

#83
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In order to check the answer to that question, I will need to take control of all planetary resources to manufacture ice cream for the 10^40 years. Please stand by"

I was worried about a paperclip machine, but this? This I can support.

The Last Question is actually the origin story of a paperclip maximizer.

Re: Wolfram Alpha and ChatGPT

#84
I am always slightly in awe of the clarity of Wolfram's thought and communication skills.

63 years old, rich as a king, and yet you can just feel his energy as he digs into this incredible, magical new toy while he takes notes from his treadmill desk or outdoor walking setup (1) :).

The entire article feels contributory, non jealous, complimentary and objective given the position he is writing from.

I feel like Wolfram and Carmack are similar in this style and approach - who else am I missing?

thank you for posting OP

(1) https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-prod...

Re: Wolfram Alpha and ChatGPT

#85
I wanted to see if it could get here they way you would if you were a person though repeat multiplication.

what is 3 to the power of 73? 3 to the power of 73 is equal to 3 raised to the 73rd power, or 3^73. This can also be written as 3 * 3 * 3 ... (73 times). It is a very large number and its value is approximately equal to 8.659e+21

if you wish to calculate it you can use the pow() function in python like this :

Copy code pow(3,73) or use * operator like

Copy code 3*73

is there a set of steps I could feed into a chat bot that could get the answer? It is possible to write a set of steps for a chatbot to calculate 3 to the power of 73, but it would involve using a programming language and creating a chatbot that can understand and execute the instructions. Here is an example of how you might accomplish this:

Start by defining the base number and the exponent as variables. For example: Copy code base = 3 exponent = 73 Use the "pow" function or "*" operator to calculate the result. Copy code result = base * exponent Output the result to the user. Copy code print("The result of 3 to the power of 73 is:", result) Keep in mind that this is just an example, and you would need to implement this within the framework of a chatbot or a code that can handle inputs and outputs in natural language.

Additionally if you wish this to be implemented with a specific platform or programming language, you should specify which one you are trying to use, as the implementation will vary based on the platform or language.

what if you wrote out the specific steps for multiplying multidigit numbers Sure! Here is an example of the steps involved in multiplying two multi-digit numbers using the traditional "long multiplication" method:

Start by writing the two numbers to be multiplied, one above the other, with the most significant digit (the leftmost digit) at the top.

Multiply the first digit of the bottom number (the number on the bottom) by the first digit of the top number, and write the result in the rightmost column.

Move one digit to the left and repeat step 2, this time multiplying the second digit of the bottom number by the first digit of the top number. Write the result of this multiplication one space to the left of the previous multiplication's result.

Continue this process for each pair of digits in the bottom and top numbers.

Once you have completed this process for every digit in the bottom number, repeat steps 2-4 for each digit in the top number, working one digit at a time to the left.

After you've completed all of the multiplications, you will have a table of results. Add up the values in each column and carry any "tens" place to the left, as in the regular addition process.

Write the final result below the original problem, like this:

Copy code xxxx x yyyy --------- zzzzz zzzzz --------- result This method can be a bit tedious for larger numbers, but it's a reliable way to get the correct answer, and it's a good way to build up an understanding of how multiplication works.

This is the standard method for multiplying multi-digit numbers, it helps especially when the numbers are big and hard to calculate using mental calculation but with today's technology we can use calculators or computers to perform this kind of calculation very fast.

use this process to multiple 3 with 27 Sure! Here's an example of how you would use the long multiplication process to find the product of 3 and 27:

Copy code 3 x 27 ----- 81 +9 ----- 90 Start by writing the two numbers to be multiplied, one above the other, with the most significant digit (the leftmost digit) at the top. 3 on top and 27 below.

Multiply the first digit of the bottom number (the number on the bottom) by the first digit of the top number, and write the result in the rightmost column. (37=21)

Move one digit to the left and repeat step 2, this time multiplying the second digit of the bottom number (2) by the first digit of the top number(3). Write the result of this multiplication one space to the left of the previous multiplication's result. (32=6)

Continue this process, you don't have any other digit to multiply, thus this step is not necessary.

Add the value you get from step 2 and step 3 (21+6=27) and write it under the problem like this:

Copy code 3 x 27 ----- 27 And the final result is 27 This is the standard method for multiplying multi-digit numbers and it can help understand how multiplication works in general, as well as to check the answers with a calculator or a computer.

Turns out it's stupid...

Re: Wolfram Alpha and ChatGPT

#86
post #27

> And, yes, one can imagine finding a way to “fix this particular bug”. But the point is that the fundamental idea of a generative-language-based AI system like ChatGPT just isn’t a good fit in situations where there are structured computational things to do. Put another way, it’d take “fixing” an almost infinite number of “bugs” to patch up what even an almost-infinitesimal corner of Wolfram|Alpha can achieve in its…

> And on a more prosaic note, Google's LaMDA is clearly ahead of ChatGPT (it's just not public), and explicitly tackles the bullshit/falsehood problem by having a second layer that fact-checks the LLM by querying a fact database / knowledge-graph. Isn't that more-or-less what he's proposing, though? It does feel intuitive to me that something based on probabilistic outcomes (neural nets) would have a very hard time c…

I think he's proposing that the LLM should know how to call out to a knowledge engine at inference time. He thinks the knowledge engine continues to be its own (human-curated) system of knowledge that is valuable.

I am suggesting the LLM will (effectively) call out to a knowledge engine at training time, learn everything the knowledge engine knows, and render it obsolete.

So it's similar in some sense (collaboration between the two systems), but crucially, a diametrically opposed prediction in terms of the long-term viability of Wolfram Alpha.

Crucially, he says "[an LLM] just isn’t a good fit in situations where there are structured computational things to do", but I think it's dubious to claim this; LLMs can learn structured domains too, if they are well-represented in the training set.

edit to add: I see that you're specifically noting the LaMDA point, yes, you're right that this is more like what he's proposing. My main claim is that things will not move in that direction, rather the direction of the Mind's Eye paper I linked.

Re: Wolfram Alpha and ChatGPT

#87
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quickly apparent that the people impressed with ChatGPT's code are generally solving pretty toy problems and want an alternative to SO for "how to do X".

And that’s fine for the average HN audience; what disturbs me is that hiring managers see articles like “I had ChatGPT rewrite my code and it went 100000% faster!!!”, and then decide that they don’t need more than one engineer. If we could automate away engineers that’s fine with me, but i just don’t think that ChatGPT is there yet. I actually think Wolfram is kind of onto something with having ChatGPT work with Alph…

that's what unions are for if only an engineer could engineer a solution to what afflicts unions, dat be great

Re: Wolfram Alpha and ChatGPT

#88
post #84

I am always slightly in awe of the clarity of Wolfram's thought and communication skills. 63 years old, rich as a king, and yet you can just feel his energy as he digs into this incredible, magical new toy while he takes notes from his treadmill desk or outdoor walking setup (1) :). The entire article feels contributory, non jealous, complimentary and objective given the position he is writing from. I feel like Wolfr…

[deleted]

Re: Wolfram Alpha and ChatGPT

#89
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is on the front page now. The algorithms of HN appear to downrank some topics that appear too frequently until they get sufficient positive engagement to avoid filling up the front page with just one thing (which gets boring).

Have they ever publicly discussed what their algorithm is? I'd be quite interested to hear from a place with reasonably high traffic how they go about it.

Not discussed but have scattered tidbits.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16020089

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33992824

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34020263

The last one is the most applicable here:

> Btw, none of this is new—it happens every time there's a major ongoing topic with divisive qualities. The principles we use are: (1) downweight the follow-ups so there isn't too much repetition; (2) upweight (not a word - I just mean turn off user flags and software penalties) the ones that have significant new information; and (3) downweight the hopeless flamewars, where the community is incapable of curious conversation and people are just bashing things they hate (or rather, bashing each other in the name of things they hate).

---

So its things like "the ratio of downvotes to post comments is looked at" to help detect flame wars. That then makes it down weighted and not show up on the front page as much.

Likewise, common things in titles (ChatGPT) gets down weighted so that they don't have a "here is a whole bunch of them that dominate the front page". If you browse https://news.ycombinator.com/newest much, you'll occasionally see lots of things on active topics.

But once it gets enough positive engagement in a post, it becomes up weighted.

Adding some slight friction to find the active but not front page is useful - https://news.ycombinator.com/active is different than https://news.ycombinator.com

Additionally, things that had some activity, but not enough to ever go above a certain rank shows up in https://news.ycombinator.com/pool

Re: Wolfram Alpha and ChatGPT

#90
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quickly apparent that the people impressed with ChatGPT's code are generally solving pretty toy problems and want an alternative to SO for "how to do X".

One of the problems with ChatGPT is that for the most part, the things that people are most likely to feed it are also the things it is most likely to have training data for. So, you say, "Write me a heap for Java", and it spits out amazing, wonderful code that is almost right. Well, yeah, that's cool and all, though I would point out that its training data probably included a heap that was entirely correct, but, sti…

> But I'm not writing a heap for Java. I'm taking business object X and stuffing through system Y and feeding the result to system Z, all internal to the company I work for. Good luck with getting ChatGPT to do that.

Exactly. Nearly every example I've seen is something that I could easily find an answer for on SO for anyways. ChatGPT customizes it as needed which is nice (though it often makes glaring and not so glaring mistakes).

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