Hacker News

Favorites Setup
Comment by assumed_throwaw | original | Knuth reward check
[−]assumed_throwaw · 2026-10-10 Sat 16:46 UTC · link
I'm surprised we haven't heard of anyone running an AI on Donald Knuth's books to generate the largest collection of checks in existence...
[−]WillAdams · 2026-10-10 Sat 18:25 UTC · link
He is quite methodical and meticulous --- I doubt that there is much in the training data which isn't already accounted for in his research for his writings.

I only managed to get one check (for an error and a point of improvement) for _very_ minor points in _Digital Typography_ which was facilitated by my having been fascinated by typography since reading Oscar Ogg's _The 26 Letters_ and his cousin Warren Chappell's _The Living Alphabet_ when I was 8 or so.

[−]xyst · 2026-10-10 Sat 20:16 UTC · link
The next headline will read: "AI pilled vibecoders bankrupt a once prominent computer scientist, the figure will surprise you!"
[−]gucci-on-fleek · 2026-10-10 Sat 22:23 UTC · link
They definitely have; lots of the recent bug reports [0] explicitly acknowledge AI assistance. You can also look at the list of pending bug reports [1] and see how many are from 2026 compared to other years (and it takes many months to get the bug reports enough to add them to this list, so this significantly undercounts things).

[0]: https://tug.org/pipermail/tex-k/

[1]: https://tug.org/texmfbug/newbug.html