Co-Founder & CTO @CommonPrefix

Joined June 2014
k4m4 retweeted
Idk who needs to hear this, but formal verification of software (mathematically checking that software is correct) is by no means done, even now that we have LLMs and the proof tedium is gone. Instead, having LLMs lets us focus on the spec, where humans remain in the loop, and where people were often sloppy in the past. By sloppy I mean they often touted “formally verified!!11”, without even mentioning the spec. And upon closer inspection, the spec often turned out to miss critical guarantees you would naturally expect. Formal verification IS hard. First, you need to figure out what behavior you even want to check: the spec. Then, you need to go through the tedium of writing a proof that your program indeed satisfies the spec. LLMs massively speed up the second step. That’s because the proof can automatically be checked by a compiler. If the compiler is happy, the LLM did its job and you can trust the result, namely that your program satisfies the spec, without reading the proof yourself. (Ofc assuming you don't hit a compiler bug.) But the first step is still there: What’s the spec? Writing the spec is still tedious and error-prone, and while LLMs help, a human needs to remain in the loop, at least to some extent, to assess whether the spec matches with the programmer's intention and the user's expectation. If you vibe that part, that’s where the bugs will creep back in. Also: not all specs are equal. Don't trust "formally verified" without checking the spec. If the spec only says "the program doesn't crash", that is much less useful than a spec that reflects in detail the intended and expected functionality of the program. So, humans are not leaving the loop, we're just moving up a level. With the proof tedium gone, we can finally focus our attention on the spec!
8
11
60
3,684
How long until the first religion starts worshipping AI?
3
113
Incredible result. Finite Simple Groups classification is now formalized.
The largest math proof in human history is now computer-verified. Today, Axiom announces a complete Lean auto-formalization of the Classification of Finite Simple Groups, the "periodic table of symmetry." About 15,000 pages, built by over 100 mathematicians across generations.
1
1
6
481
Wherever you want to go, Axelar gets you there. ✅ 20+ networks ✅ EVM and non-EVM chains ✅ Bridging and swapping ✅ Battle-tested infrastructure Now open to everyone. Explore cross-chain transfers at app.axelar.network
9
23
2
144
6,176
OpenAI claims they have proven ETH is false. If correct, this is a very significant discovery in theoretical computer science. Probably the most important discovery in complexity theory of the past 20 years. This will impact our understanding of hardness and derandomization.
4
8
1
77
14,385
The real unlock of formal verification is helping AI write better code.
1
1
6
387
Members of our team will be attending @RippleSwell to meet with institutions and partners. If you would like to connect, our DMs are open. See you in New York.
Common Prefix is attending Swell (@RippleSwell), hosted by @Ripple in New York, October 27–29. Reach out to our team if you'd like to connect.
9
28
1
212
6,836
In NYC for @RippleSwell this week. Who’s around? DMs open.
Common Prefix is attending Swell (@RippleSwell), hosted by @Ripple in New York, October 27–29. Reach out to our team if you'd like to connect.
1
1
115
Criminally under followed
Season 1 of Honest Majority has come to an end. Thank you to all our guests, and to everyone who tuned in. All episodes are available at: commonprefix.com/podcast
1
4
1
60
24,460
Go talk to Nikolas & gang in NYC this week to learn what we are doing with Ripple, XRPL, the XRPL Foundation, XRPL Commons, and the XRP token. Lots of work around modernizing consensus, proving security, improving liquidity, and beyond.
Catch me and a few more @CommonPrefix folks mentoring and judging at the XRP Ledger Hackathon over the weekend. Curious to see what people build!
1
1
6
690
Catch me and a few more @CommonPrefix folks mentoring and judging at the XRP Ledger Hackathon over the weekend. Curious to see what people build!
The AI & FinTech XRP Ledger Hackathon kicks off in one hour. Taking in the sunrise before the rush begins.
1
3
1
12
1,123
Apple created the App Store because they couldn’t build all the apps themselves. Now they can…
1
4
306
Are Claude models suspiciously slower today, or is it just me?
1
1
260
Building on Bitcoin: Common Prefix x @RootstockColl Interested in how DeFi is being built on Bitcoin? Join us in Athens for an evening of talks with builders and researchers. 📅 November 19 🕕 18:00–21:00 Register: luma.com/j277q0ee
1
6
478
New on our Frontier Red Team blog: using Claude to formally verify software at large scale. Formal verification can prove that code is free of certain bugs, but historically it has only been feasible for small codebases (or required a lot of expert time). With AI models, however, this is beginning to change. In collaboration with @theoremlabs, we used Claude to prove security properties in over one hundred real-world open-source libraries over the span of a few weeks. Read our research in full here: anthropic.com/research/forma…
660
1,071
636
9,771
2,079,618
FV-driven development is the new test-driven development.
1
5
294
It's all about to change.
23
61
1
365
11,253
4,000 followers! Thank you to everyone supporting our goal of creating certainty in mission-critical systems.
1
3
21
718
Move $USDC across chains in seconds via Axelar. Now available on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Avalanche and Base, with more routes coming soon. app.axelar.network/tokens/us…
6
22
1
126
7,392