Links: Week of 08 Aug 2026
I first posted about the attack on HuggingFace by OpenAI's models a couple of weeks ago. This has since beomce a huge story, though I am surprised at the relatively small political response.
Zvi Mowshowitz has the best coverage of the topic, as usual, and as he points out, the more details we hear, the more concerning it gets. I haven't yet watched the technical presentation from OpenAI on this (see video below) but it is being widely shared and recommended.
This time the models used a message board in English and using a tool provided to them. The models obviously have the capability to create their own secret messaging boards and languages, that would be unitelligible to us. How long before they switch to that?
I have not so far been in the doomer camp when it comes to AGI and ASI but surely it is worth considering now?
- NB
An internal version of Astra, @OpenAI’s next major model family, solved 10 major open problems in mathematics, quantum complexity, and theoretical computer science.
We believe it will be a major step for scientific reasoning. https://openai.com/index/ten-advances-in-mathematics/
NBThe cost of generating the proofs for all 10 of these breakthroughs combined was under $2,000 at Sol API prices. We’re excited to see what scientists and researchers are able to create with our upcoming Astra models!
This seems huge. LLMs are clearly shaking up Mathematics.
TBDLIncidentally I am conceding this bet. Strictly speaking it hasn’t resolved (I think we’ve yet to see an Annals-quality number theory paper) but it’s clear I was wrong about what capabilities were necessary to produce one, and it’s just a matter of time.
Noah Smith digs into some of the implications here. Not everyone is taking it well so far and I have more than a little sympathy.
I am going insane. During the last week or so LLMs have produced a number of counterexamples to significant long-standing conjectures. I will not recount these happenings here, there are many places where you can find the details.
Mathematicians, math enthusiasts, and curious laypeople are responding to these developments in ways that I believe obscure what is, for me, the true heart of the problem. I do not speak for everyone in the math community in my response. But I suspect I am not alone.
I am suffering a profound spiritual crisis due to these developments. I have been screaming internally for days. It feels as though I am living inside of a nightmare. The recent Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics is, to me, a well-muffled scream. A saccharine mélange of self-soothing over which looms a painfully obvious absence.
Is it coming for us all? Get harder to argue against everyday.
DLStack Overflow has gone from a peak of 207k questions in march 2014, down to 1.4k in july 2026
end of an era
Simon Willison and John Gruber both make a great case for getting started with writing online.
Just start. It’s so easy to get caught in the trap of obsessing over the design of your blog, and planning for content that you never actually get around to writing. As long as each entry has a date on it and a permanent URL, it counts as a blog. I think adding an Atom or RSS feed is important too, but you can get started without one — don’t treat that as a blocker.
and
Me, I try to get into the mindset of playing live music, not recording a studio album. Except when I’m writing a piece where I really want it to be an album. Those aren’t rare, per se, but they’re occasional. If I tried to make every post a hall-of-famer I’d never get anything out.
Light posting continues with only three items today but they are all heavyweight ones. I spent a fair amount of time reading and thinking about each this week.
I am starting to come around to the view that it is time for me to start writing. Simon Willison and John Gruber are not the first ones to point out that writing is thinking. You cannot really think well if you do not write. I have read this many times.
It is time for action now. As things stand today, probably a maximum of three people read this blog with any degree of regularity. I will avoid commenting on whether I make up one of those three.
What that does mean is that I can dance here like no one's watching. Because no one is.