Updates!
(1) My 8-year-old son asked me last week, “daddy, did you hear that GPT-5 is now out?” So yes, I’m indeed aware that GPT-5 is now out! I’ve just started playing around with it. For detailed reports on what’s changed and how impressive it is compared to previous models, see for example Zvi #1, #2, […]
ChatGPT and the Meaning of Life: Guest Post by Harvey Lederman
Scott Aaronson’s Brief Foreword: Harvey Lederman is a distinguished analytic philosopher who moved from Princeton to UT Austin a few years ago. Since his arrival, he’s become one of my best friends among the UT professoriate. He’s my favorite kind of philosopher, the kind who sees scientists as partners in discovering the truth, and also […]
Quantum Complexity Theory Student Project Showcase #5 (2025 Edition)!
Sorry for the long blog-hiatus! I was completely occupied for weeks, teaching an intensive course on theoretical computer science to 11-year-olds (!), at a math camp in St. Louis that was also attended by my 8-year-old son. Soon I’ll accompany my 12-year-old daughter to a science camp in Connecticut, where I’ll also give lectures. There’s […]
BusyBeaver(6) is really quite large
For overdetermined reasons, I’ve lately found the world an increasingly terrifying and depressing place. It’s gotten harder and harder to concentrate on research, or even popular science writing. Every so often, though, something breaks through that wakes my inner child, reminds me of why I fell in love with research thirty years ago, and helps […]
Raymond Laflamme (1960-2025)
Even with everything happening in the Middle East right now, even with (relatedly) everything happening in my own family (my wife and son sheltering in Tel Aviv as Iranian missiles rained down), even with all the rather ill-timed travel I’ve found myself doing as these events unfolded (Ecuador and the Galapagos and now STOC’2025 in […]