Mm.

Um, and I think 2016's when I started being like, "Oof, my probabilities are shifting from, like, pretty sure it's not gonna happen to I don't know anymore." And then when ChatGPT came out, I actually called my, one of my friends that same day, and I was like, "I was wrong.

You were right.

This is, is gonna be everything." Um, I know you guys don't agree with me.

That's fine.

I'm just, I'm just saying my point of view.

Um, and, um, and so that happened, and I was like, "Okay, this is a big deal.

I-

What interested you about the work?

I've been working on it for about 15 years or so and kind of in bits and pieces, not sort of the whole thing at once.

We'd find some little component of it and we'd work on that and get some success and then move on to something else.

One thing which is nice about it, like a lot of math, is that it links a bunch of different subjects together.

There's sort of an algebraic geometry perspective on it.

There's something called logic that comes into play.

So it's fun when you have a bunch of little ingredients that you can sort of play with.

Math is like my seven-year-old who just doesn't stop asking questions, which is great, right? When you think back to when you were a kid, what was life like for you in math class? Was that easy? Did you have to work hard at it? Did you know that's something you wanted to do?

[laughs]

I find math really fun because by nature you study the things that are most interesting.

Like, it's the study of puzzles, and which puzzles do you work on? The ones that have the most structure, the ones that have the most mystery, that bring about the most fun, the most aesthetics.

So, you know, other fields like physics and chemistry and...

They're wonderful fields, uh, obviously, and they interact with the real world, and there's a huge benefit there.

They have their own pluses, but they are limited in terms of bringing your creativity by what actually exists in the world, and math is only limited by what makes sense.

Um, so part of math is just trying to figure out, you know, um, what structures can exist in the world.

I- is there some implicit contract that they have with me where I'm saying, "Hey, most likely you'll be able to get a job"? And I actually don't know, I as Jacob, don't know what the job market's gonna be in two years.