Strogatz and Townsend discuss AI and big math in new book
Original title: What happens to mathematics when AI becames an oracle?
The Ars interview covers large-scale computation, language-model scale, and math that exceeds unaided human calculation.
Ars Technica interviewed mathematician Steven Strogatz about Big Math, co-written with Alex Townsend. The book argues that large computational problems, from imaging and engineering to models with trillions of parameters, exceed what people can work through unaided. Strogatz contrasts tractable linear problems with nonlinear ones and discusses fairness criteria in redistricting. The piece is an interview, not a research result or product launch.
- Co-author Alex Townsend studies numerical analysis and deep learning at Cornell.
- Strogatz says the largest language models now typically have trillions of parameters.
- The interview uses redistricting compactness as a mathematical example.
From the original article
15 min read at arstechnica.com
Mathematician Steven Strogatz discusses his new book, Big Math: The Hidden Codes That Run Our World.
By Jennifer Ouellette · arstechnica.com
A short excerpt; the article and its images belong to the publisher. Summary, key facts and assessment above are AI-written from the article and can be wrong.