Phoebe Zeng

Thrilled to share that I’ll be starting @PrincetonCS this fall as a PhD candidate in the @cocosci_lab. My research will focus on AI for math. If math was erased from human memory, it seems likely we’d reinvent a similar mathematics. I hope interrogating the nature of this tight connection between human cognition and human mathematics can teach us how to design artificial mathematicians.

Was great to host Jared and the @mathematics_inc team at @PrincetonCS yesterday. Thanks to everyone who participated in the exciting conversations about human and artificial mathematics.

We're hosting the next Proof on August 1 in NYC. Come celebrate mathematical performance with us. It will be a special one :) @KlettPhoebe. RSVP below

Anyway, science and mathematics are aesthetic pursuits and we need more culture that celebrates them as such, instead of just being grist for the mill of "impact".

Previous programs: practiceofproof.com

RSVP: unitaryfund.typeform.com/to/BvMr64nv

There will be much fanfare at our next Proof Liturgy. As always, all math curious are welcome!

@BlackHC @NormalComputing Thanks, fixed!

@KlettPhoebe @NormalComputing 404 atm :(

I’m proud to have contributed to @NormalComputing’s mission of creating a unified theory of thermodynamics and AI over the last two years. Computer science research should aim to be basic science research. I’m excited to share a self-contained introduction to thermodynamic computing; algorithms are nothing without a substrate.

@NormalComputing In the piece, I describe the stochastic mathematics we use to model physics and show how this formalism allows us to leverage physical systems to implement algorithms for learning.

@NormalComputing phoebe-love.com/assets/intro-t…

@amarchenkova So grateful for your support and friendship.

Congrats @KlettPhoebe on your new adventure! Next stop: a PhD at Princeton University studying AI for math. The coolest thing about what I do now is working with so many great, inspiring people who are learning and building every day. You're a gem of a human being who will accomplish amazing things and are building an incredible life! So proud to have gotten a chance to work side by side with you, attend your Proof Liturgy, and hang out on aircraft carriers ❤️ Wish I could be there for your last day at @NormalComputing, but it's not goodbye!

@FarisSbahi @PrincetonCS @cocosci_lab Ditto.

@KlettPhoebe @PrincetonCS @cocosci_lab Congratulations Phoebe, we’ll miss you!

Thrilled to share that I’ll be starting @PrincetonCS this fall as a PhD candidate in the @cocosci_lab. My research will focus on AI for math. If math was erased from human memory, it seems likely we’d reinvent a similar mathematics. I hope interrogating the nature of this tight connection between human cognition and human mathematics can teach us how to design artificial mathematicians.

NYC math & physics club unite :)

@NoahChrein @getjonwithit Let’s do it!

@getjonwithit Would work for me, but I am not a central node in nyc math…. @KlettPhoebe ?

Anyone up for starting one of these in NYC? I’ll bring the Hagoromo.

posteriors 𝞡 published at ICLR! I’ll be in Singapore next week, let’s chat all things scalable Bayesian learning! 🇸🇬👋

@NoahChrein @PrincetonCS @cocosci_lab The questions top of mind for me are: (1) Which features of human cognition enable human mathematics? (2) Does human cognition determine human mathematics?

@KlettPhoebe @PrincetonCS @cocosci_lab Congrats! To your second point: In the sense that mathematics, as it is done now, is emergent from human psychology? Or that there is some platonic manifold we are exploring when we make coherant definitions, and it was always there and always shaped that way?

@Amir_Arsalan_ @PrincetonCS @cocosci_lab Fair point :)

@KlettPhoebe @PrincetonCS @cocosci_lab Congratulations. Tom is awesome! Do you mean PhD student? I thought it takes a 1-2 years usually to become a PhD candidate once you pass certain courses and/or qualification exam. Maybe it's different at Princeton; I'm curious to know

@NoahChrein @jvmncs @bmorphism @getjonwithit @wjzeng Unfortunately you just missed one last week! Next one in Aug :)

@jvmncs @bmorphism @getjonwithit @KlettPhoebe @wjzeng Thanks for the heads up! One coming up?

Our hypothesis suggests that access to stable set of laws (could be through simulation) is necessary for mathematical understanding. We didn’t consider if those laws need to be the same as those inherent in the being’s own physicality…. interesting question! And I’m not sure about religion but the belief that mathematical meaning is embedded in physical systems is certainly a metaphysical belief :)

thanks for the fascinating post. Is it a correct understanding that for the machine to understand maths, it needs to understand physical reality, on which it is itself built and dependant, from first principle? i.e. it can't understand or correctly compute it's own existence without the experiential data you refer to? if a human is born and lives all its life on another planet or in space, will it face a similar problem? is the difference between maths through context vs maths through physicality, the same difference as maths as a science vs maths as a religious belief? are these questions totally nonsensical? :D

Why are language models so bad at math? We propose that it’s because mathematical meaning is encoded in the world itself and not in its representations. Some thoughts on math, meaning and physics in our blogpost: @wjzeng willzeng.com/shared/math.ht…