Autoformalization Updated +Created
"Autoformalization" refers to automatically converting a traditional human readable mathematical proof to a formal proof.
Automatic programming Updated +Created
We use the term "automatic programming" to mean "generating code from natural language".
The ultimate high level of which is of course to program with:
computer, make money
which is basically the goal of artificial general intelligence, especially according to The Employment Test definition of AGI.
The term has not always had that sense:
automatic programming has always been a euphemism for programming in a higher-level language than was then available to the programmer
sums it up.
But in the current AI boom, this is the sense that matters, so that's what we will go with.
Google Quantum AI Updated +Created
Google's quantum hardware/software effort.
The "AI" part is just prerequisite buzzword of the AI boom era for any project and completely bullshit.
According to job postings such as: archive.ph/wip/Fdgsv their center is in Goleta, California, near Santa Barbara. Though Google tends to promote it more as Santa Barbara, see e.g. Daniel's t-shirt at Video "Building a quantum computer with superconducting qubits by Daniel Sank (2019)".
Video 1.
Control of transmon qubits using a cryogenic CMOS integrated circuit (QuantumCasts) by Google (2020)
Source. Fantastic video, good photos of the Google Quantum AI setup!
The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics was not in Physics Updated +Created
This was the most obscene Nobel Prize of all time. They were completely swept away by the AI boom, and gave this ridiculous prize completely unrelated to Physics.
Conclusion and feelings Updated +Created
It is a bit sad to work on a project that no one cares about. You're not sure if you're crazy or a visionary. And it is kind of lonely.
I sometimes wonder if I would be happy doing this for the rest of my life if I could. And if it would have any impact at all no matter for how long I do it. My feelings in that area go from slightly depressed to slightly excited about the potential a few times every week.
As we all know, living and making life choices means sacrificing other things that could have been. When I was in France in 2015, I started a masters course in AI/robotics with the idea of doing a PhD and AGI research later on but quit half way because I felt university was such a waste of time.
But come now the AI boom, and although I still believe education is broken, I might have been much better off financially/reputationally if I had withstood the bullshit followed that path. Instead I sacrificed that for nerding about low level programming and open educational content.
It is hard to get such ideas off one's mind. But the fact is, for better or worse, I've started walking the path of educational reform and sacrificed others along the way, and this is the path that I'm further ahead than other people, and perhaps I should pursue it further to a possible conclusion. Also this path has the advantage that it is not fully exclusive from other academic endeavors as we will always need content about the new flashy things that keep coming up.
So yeah, it's hard, but here I am, and I'll go as far as I can without going into Charles Bukowski levels of personal sacrifice.