5 ms·
in terry tao’s recent interview with lex fridman there’s an interesting bit on poincaré conjecture where he goes out of his way not to use these words.
by coderatlarge 1y ago
in terry tao’s recent interview with lex fridman there’s an interesting bit on poincaré conjecture where he goes out of his way not to use these words.
- randomtoast 1y agoIt's a good (and long) interview, and I genuinely enjoyed it. Terry Tao comes across as a truly nice person. However, I noticed that he tends to be somewhat non-committal in his responses. For each question posed, he provides thorough explanations that most with a basic understanding of math can follow. Nevertheless, he rarely makes predictions or offers his opinion. He frequently ends with a remark such as, "Yes, well, it's a challenging problem." I completely understand where he is coming from. While it's true that "we don't know what we don't know", I would appreciate hearing more about his (opinionated) thoughts regarding the topics discussed during the interview.
- williamstein 1y agoFascinating observation. Maybe he is better at research partly by being disciplined to not have such opinions. Having an opinion can bias one’s approach to a problem, making it harder to solve.
- coderatlarge 1y agomaybe a more mathematical interviewer could hove drawn out more predictions. i appreciate lex for having invited tao. i hope he manages to convince perelman.
- xanderlewis 1y agoJust about anyone would be a more mathematical interviewer than Fridman. Even when it comes to CS, it’s blatantly obvious he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. How he got famous is such a mystery…
- coderatlarge 1y agostarting from knuth + pearl and evolving to potus and india pm is pretty amazing. he obviously brings something that people crave.
- randomtoast 1y agoI think Lex is prepping his interviews very well. He will ask questions that address the areas in which the interviewee is an expert in. However, you begin to realize that he often struggles to ask follow-up questions that are relevant to what the interviewee has shared on various topics. This differs in other podcasts. For example, Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist, conducts interviews with colleagues, who are also theoretical physicists. This enables him to engage in a meaningful conversation with the person being interviewed. When both parties strive to use language that a wider audience can understand, it truly becomes enjoyable.
- Syntonicles 1y agoIt's a lot to ask of two experts to also be excellent communicators for an audience that may struggle to follow along. I wonder if a potential application of LLMS could be: have two experts have a really interesting but dense conversation with each other, and then translate the conversation into simpler language with interjections for explanations. It may not be enjoyable for the most general audience, but it would scratch an itch for some of us.
- randomtoast 1y agoI think we already have something quite similar available. There are AI podcasts that can be generated automatically (Google Notebooks, ElevenLabs, ...). If you input a transcript of an expert conversation and request it to be explained in simpler terms, I think you would closely match what you're looking for.
- almostgotcaught 1y agoWhat a weird comment/expectation. He's an academic mathematician not an influencer. What exactly do you expect him to predict - whether the Riemann hypothesis will be proven?
- coderatlarge 1y agoi think the desire being expressed is to hear tao’s view on what is likely to happen on the various problems . as one of the most prominent mathematicians of our time his personal opinion would be valuable.
- almostgotcaught 1y ago> what is likely to happen on the various problems Pure math just doesn't work like that. Literally no one has any idea when XYZ problem will be proven - there's no way to know! It's not like building a stadium or a road or even a company , where you can see or anticipate the coming of a proof before it arrives. It could happen tomorrow or it could happen never. For example, of Hilbert's original 23 problems posed in 1900, three are still open.
- coderatlarge 1y agoi agree. but if tao has any opinions on what will fall first or with what techniques, i would listen. tao himself says that some problems lack handholds to climb the sheer cliff . it would be nice to know what he views as handholds on the various problems that have them.
- srean 1y agoYou would, but then others would also come out of the woodworks claiming how wrong Tao is (or was, and I told you so). Even if that's true that's a lot of avoidable drama. These kinds of conversation works great for pushing addictive engagement but I doubt it does a lot of good.
- 1y ago