> That's rich coming from the company that tried to kill it
This post is written by three of the authors of the JPEG XL spec, implementors of the reference and rust implementations of libjxl, and...longtime google employees.
Mozilla's position from when Chrome first dropped it to September 2024 was "the benefits it provides are not significant enough on their own to justify the cost of adding another raster image format to the Web" [0], which they say is a "neutral" stance. Then like Chrome they only agreed to try it with jxl-rs [1], which is still their present stance. They are a complete passenger in this whole affair, like all other standards, where they basically just copy one side or the other (usually the more conservative side).
It's really bizarre to me that this is presented as "killing the standard". Is Apple also killing mechanical keyboards and hobby electronics development because they're the only ones who don't support Web USB or Web Serial? I strongly prefer having JXL and Web USB/Serial in my browser (FF for the last 20 years), but come on. If we don't like how much power browsers have in software distribution, then maybe software distribution outside of browsers should get fixed.
> Is Apple also killing mechanical keyboards and hobby electronics development
Obviously not, but they are killing as web standards the things they omit. At present for something to be standard it needs support from safari and chrome. That's just the current state of the world.
If tomorrow safari removed support for png that would effectively kill it as a web standard (assuming it didn't lead to mass revolt ofc).
> This is all contingent on AI forays into mathematics being slop and low quality
It's literally a set of recommendations for researchers on how to use AI to advance the field and prevent slop from overwhelming the people who might do anything with the research produced.
For people who are so eager to declare that everyone else is just having an existential crisis because "your culture is commodified", AI people are getting awfully defensive about this document.
> Especially interesting compared to the Bourbaki movement from a century ago, which was much more focused on universality and correctness, and much less focused on process and attribution (in fact, demanded anonymity).
The Bourbaki group was (is) about documenting existing mathematics rigorously, not doing original research. This document is specifically about the future of mathematical research.
Your list is cherry picked from the list of "potential threats" to the values of the mathematical research community identified by this document. They aren't criticisms or absolute statements, they're literally a list of potential new problems for the future of mathematical research, and they all seem reasonable to me, if not all at the same levels of magnitude or plausibility.
Notably you don't seem to be looking at either the list of identified values or their recommendations to researchers in their use of LLMs, which would seem much more important to engage with in any non-shallow dismissal of the document as "feel[ing] like gate keeping and resistance to change".
It's also kind of a bad look (and actively harmful for discourse) for people working on AI to be so dismissive of fields actively engaging with how their field is changing due to AI. I haven't seen any other field engaging this actively with its possible futures, have you? Usually we seem to only get some extreme of over-hyped utopia, doomerism, or dismissal of everything as slop.
> That's the product of math from the point of view of mathematicians. But is it the point of view of those funding math?
Yes, and your examples are exactly examples of what the GP quote is talking about.
Of course people paying money want applications, which includes "power" in your kind of reductive framing (applications to war being only one of many types of applications, or we could redefine any gradient provided by expanded understanding as "power", in which case the choice of word just seems melodramatic).
What we've also learned over the centuries, a lot more clearly in the last few, is that seemingly pointless or applicationless understanding can very quickly become useful. This is why it's clearly worth still funding pure math.
> Because their customers, who they built a trusting relationship with, get hosed when the owner wants to cash out.
Sure, and it's often a real loss to customers, but are you suggesting mandating that you vet the person you're selling to for their business aspirations and then have some kind of legal covenant that binds them to those stated aspirations, enforced by...something?
Otherwise we can just be satisfied with shaming them, but seems like an awfully convenient way to sidetrack this conversation from the obvious remedies.
> That cash out comes from the future business increasing profit, which is over the longest term cutting service quality.
Which is a problem when the same person buying also bought up all the other dentist offices, so there's no choice, let alone competition, in services.
Eliminate that and the sweetheart buyout offers make a lot less financial sense and we can at least prevent the scales from tippng so steeply toward PE buying up all the dentists, hospitals, retirement homes, HVAC repair, roofing companies, pest control, etc etc
> Because their customers, who they built a trusting relationship with, get hosed when the owner wants to cash out.
Unfortunately people are mortal and everything ends. Even if a someone didn't sell their business to PE, the trusting relationship is over once they retire. There's no guarantee that someone new - even if vetted - is going to be as good as the previous owner.
> This is assigning intent without evidence, as is common in tribal politics
You are calling for constructive discourse and yet your response is an accusation of dishonesty. A non-charged assessment might use the phrase "without presenting evidence".
Not sure if you're trying to be clever (in which case I'd encourage you to just say what you mean next time), but financially penalizing a company for bad behavior absolutely is one way to pierce the corporate veil and ensure workers aligned with corporate health (through things like stock, continued employment, etc) are also aligned with societal health.
I mean it'd be less divided insofar as the minority would be more thoroughly subjugated by the state. No pesky federal government getting in the way. Though that's probably not a good thing.
> Anything you build can be exploited against you when you're on the other side of the power balance.
You're responding to someone who's explaining to you that this is exactly the problem.
If an extremist can do whatever they want if they happen to excite people with a "platform that broadly appeals to enough Americans", then the problem is structural, and has to be addressed there, or literally everything you do and have can be undone by the next moron that riles people up again.
This post is written by three of the authors of the JPEG XL spec, implementors of the reference and rust implementations of libjxl, and...longtime google employees.
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