Updatez!
- The STOC’2026 accepted papers list is out. It seems to me that there’s an emperor’s bounty of amazing stuff this year. I felt especially gratified to see the paper on the determination of BusyBeaver(5) on the list, reflecting a broad view of what theory of computing is about.
- There’s a phenomenal profile of Henry Yuen in Quanta magazine. Henry is now one of the world leaders of quantum complexity theory, involved in breakthroughs like MIP*=RE and now pioneering the complexity theory of quantum states and unitary transformations (the main focus of this interview). I’m proud that Henry tells Quanta that learned about the field in 2007 or 2008 from a blog called … what was it again? … Shtetl-Optimized? I’m also proud that I got to help mentor Henry when he was a PhD student of my wife Dana Moshkovitz at MIT. Before I read this Quanta profile, I didn’t even know the backstory about Henry’s parents surviving and fleeing the Cambodian genocide, or about Henry growing up working in his parents’ restaurant. Henry never brought any of that up!
- See Lance’s blog for an obituary of Joe Halpern, a pioneer of the branch of theoretical computer science that deals with reasoning about knowledge (e.g., the muddy children puzzle), who sadly passed away last week. I knew Prof. Halpern a bit when I was an undergrad at Cornell. He was a huge presence in the Cornell CS department who’ll be sorely missed.
- UT Austin has announced the formation of a School of Computing, which will bring together the CS department (where I work) with statistics, data science, and several other departments. Many of UT’s peer institutions have recently done the same. Naturally, I’m excited for what this says about the expanded role of computing at UT going forward. We’ll be looking to hire even more new faculty than we were before!
- When I glanced at the Chronicle of Higher Education to see what was new, I learned that researchers at OpenAI had proposed a technical solution, called “watermarking,” that might help tackle the crisis of students relying on AI to write all their papers … but that OpenAI had declined to deploy that solution. The piece strongly advocates a legislative mandate in favor of watermarking LLM outputs, and addresses some of the main counterarguments to that position.
- For those who can’t get enough podcasts of me, here are the ones I’ve done recently. Quantum: Science vs. Mythology on the Peggy Smedley Show. AI Alignment, Complexity Theory, and the Computability of Physics, on Alexander Chin’s Philosophy Podcast. And last but not least, What Is Quantum Computing? on the Robinson Erhardt Podcast.
- Also, here’s an article that quotes me entitled “Bitcoin needs a quantum upgrade. So why isn’t it happening?” Also, here’s a piece that interviews me in Investor’s Business Daily, entitled “Is quantum computing the next big tech shift?” (I have no say over these titles.)