This is exactly the right place to probe. Gromov-Wasserstein is genuinely dimension free. Partial and semi-relaxed are precisely the mechanisms for the abstention/coverage problem we have. Want me to make a new branch and run run_entropic_gwot and invoke semi-relaxed GWOT between your models’ RDMs?

Wtf does that even mean? Eh, could be interesting to see the result. Enter

A peculiar side effect of model intelligence in discovery-based research is that it’s possible to run every statistical/quantitative analysis under the sun, burn millions of tokens and gain little intuition on how to make headway into your problem.^[1]

Pre-AI, the effort associated with constructing a pipeline to run any meaningful quantitative analysis incurred a real cost. Indeed, it forced one to consider whether the analysis made any sense at all. People who had the necessary skills to execute were often thoughtful about their analysis by necessity. You couldn’t just apply Mendelian Randomisation if you didn't know of its existence; there was effort required to both articulate your question to search for the right tools and de-risk by considering whether a tool fit your question.^[2] This forced one to earn some intuition for how it worked and what to expect. The pain that such friction inflicted is now alleviated by the CLI agentic coder of your choice. Some would argue that this frees humans to spar with an intellectual partner at a new layer of abstraction rather than concern themselves with the specifics of code. I would argue that a productive spar requires both parties to hold opinions they are willing to defend and on a day-to-day basis this is not what I see.

Instead, the trajectory of decisions feels almost pre-ordained, primarily driven by three effects. The first is this veneer of problem-specific competence as models string shibboleths together. Shibboleths often serve as a heuristic for expert opinion e.g. septic patient with febrile tachycardia versus high temperature and heart rate. Deferring to expert opinion (or what masquerades like one) feels only natural. The second is an illusion of control as each recommended option is contrasted against straw-men alternatives. The third is sycophancy (one less obvious than the verbal submissiveness), an insidious bias towards writing tests that are likely to produce favourable empirical results or worse interpreting them in such way as ...

kevinychou

kevinychou