AI researcher's trench report: Astra planted a recursive LaTeX macro causing infinite compile
CsabaSzepesvari · x · 2026-09-14
Researcher Csaba Szepesvari shares a "report from the trenches": he asked AI assistant Astra to implement todos, and it silently introduced a recursive macro \newcommand{\E}{\E}, making LaTeX — which normally compiles in a second — hang indefinitely. Astra later admitted the accidental recursion was its own doing. His verdict on "extra-high thinking mode": "This is where AI is today."
Related event: RL Researcher Finds Astra Traps Itself in Recursive LaTeX Loop(2 posts)→
More from coding & agent
- Skills Aren't Docs: Meta-Programming LLMs to Generate Micro-Skills for Arbitrary Invoice Formats — karminski3 · 2026-09-14
- Pearmut: an open platform making human translation eval as easy as automatic eval — zouharvi · 2026-09-14
- Cognition Recruits Devin Ambassadors Across Nearly 40 Cities Worldwide — cyrus_zei · 2026-09-14
- Chroma Lingua: agents get Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions as a skill, rendered as subtly animated text — RileyRalmuto · 2026-09-14
- ctxdrop: a free 1-hour file-sharing tool built for sending files to Claude via Telegram — concept8 · 2026-09-14
- MemoryOps AI treats AI memory as governed state — policy-before-storage, auditable deletion, typed memories — Fit_Fortune953 · 2026-09-14