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#caramello

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Chuck Darwin<p>A larger question is whether this is what Grothendieck would have wanted. </p><p>In 1972, during his ecologist phase, <br>concerned that capitalist society was driving humanity towards ruin, <br>he gave a talk at CERN, near Geneva, <br>entitled<br> "Can We Continue Scientific Research?"</p><p>He didn’t know about AI <br>– but he was already opposed to this collusion between science and corporate industry. </p><p>Considering his pacifist values, he would probably also have been opposed to Huawei’s championing of his work; <br>-- its chief executive, <a href="https://c.im/tags/Ren" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Ren</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Zhengfei" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Zhengfei</span></a>, is a former member of the People’s Liberation Army engineering corps. </p><p>The US department of defense, <br>as well as some independent researchers, <br>believes Huawei is controlled by the Chinese military.</p><p>Huawei insists it is a private company, <br>owned by its employees and its founding chairman, <br>Ren Zhengfei, <br>and that it is “not owned, controlled or affiliated to any government or third-party company”.</p><p>Lafforgue points out that France’s IHES, <br>where Grothendieck and later he worked, <br>was funded by industrial companies<br> – and thinks Huawei’s interest is legitimate. </p><p>Caramello, who is the founder and president of the Grothendieck Institute research organisation, <br>believes that he would have wanted a systematic exploration of his concepts to bring them to fruition. </p><p>“Topos theory is itself a kind of machine that can extend our imagination,” she says. </p><p>“So you see Grothendieck was not against the use of machines. </p><p>He was against blind machines, or brute force.” </p><p>What is unsettling is a degree of opaqueness about Huawei’s aims regarding AI and its collaborations, <br>including its relationship with the Grothendieck Institute, <br>where Lafforgue sits on the scientific council. </p><p>But Caramello stresses that it is an entirely independent body that engages in theoretical, <br>not applied research, <br>and that makes its findings available to all. </p><p>She says it does not research AI and that Lafforgue’s involvement pertains solely to his expertise in Grothendieckian maths.</p><p> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Huawei" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Huawei</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/topos" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>topos</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Olivia" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Olivia</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Caramello" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Caramello</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Grothendieck" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Grothendieck</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Laurent" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Laurent</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Lafforgue" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Lafforgue</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Pierre" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Pierre</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Cartier" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Cartier</span></a></p>
Chuck Darwin<p>In mid-April, dapper Parisians are filing out of the polished foyer of a redeveloped hotel in the seventh arrondissement, heading for lunch. </p><p>The first French TV programmes were broadcast from the building -- now, <a href="https://c.im/tags/Huawei" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Huawei</span></a> is pushing for a similar leap in AI here. </p><p>It has set up the Centre-Lagrange, <br>an advanced mathematics research institute, on the site and hired elite French mathematicians, <br>including Laurent Lafforgue, to work there. </p><p>An aura of secrecy surrounds their work in this ultra-competitive field, <br>compounded by growing suspicion in the west of Chinese tech. </p><p>Huawei initially refused to answer any questions, before permitting some answers to be emailed.</p><p>Grothendieck’s notion of the <a href="https://c.im/tags/topos" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>topos</span></a>, <br>developed by him in the 1960s, <br>is of particular interest to Huawei. </p><p>Of his fully realised concepts, toposes were his furthest step in his quest to identify the deeper algebraic values at the heart of mathematical space, <br>and in doing so generate a geometry without fixed points. </p><p>He described toposes as a “vast and calm river” <br>from which fundamental mathematical truths could be sifted. </p><p><a href="https://c.im/tags/Olivia" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Olivia</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Caramello" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Caramello</span></a> views them rather as “bridges” capable of facilitating the transfer of information between different domains. </p><p>Now, Lafforgue confirms via email, <br>Huawei is exploring the application of toposes in a number of domains, including telecoms and AI.</p><p>Caramello describes toposes as a mathematical incarnation of the idea of vision; <br>-- an integration of all the possible points of view on a given mathematical situation that reveals its most essential features. </p><p>Applied to AI, toposes could allow computers to move beyond the data associated with, say, an apple; <br>-- the geometric coordinates of how it appears in images, for example, or tagging metadata. </p><p>Then AI could begin to identify objects more like we do <br>– through a deeper “semantic” understanding of what an apple is. </p><p>But practical application to create the next generation of “thinking” AI is, according to Lafforgue, some way off.</p><p> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Grothendieck" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Grothendieck</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Laurent" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Laurent</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Lafforgue" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Lafforgue</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Pierre" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Pierre</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Cartier" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Cartier</span></a></p>
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