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Putting the A in AI

Tue, 14 Jul 2026, 11:45 AM (-06:00) Creative Commons License

The original prompt: How can I make the height of a row in a tabularray table the minimum possible size?

It’s a simple question. Finding an answer is not.

This is where AI tools shine brightly. Old-school online search would lead to dead-ends, consume a lot of time, and only maybe reveal an answer. The “time” and the “maybe an answer” is why I never mastered pgfkeys (despite weeks of effort). It is why I gave up on latex3 (despite weeks of effort). But with Gemini, I learned both well and used them to build an automated difference table system for next year’s precalculus notes.

a table of xy data and of first and second differences of the y values

After a brief wait Gemini speaks.

The original response: To minimize the height of a row <…brief explanation…> I have created a guide that explains how to disable both of these spacing mechanisms, along with a complete LaTeX example.

But nothing happens.

This is not uncommon. Sometimes it’s not obvious if Gemini is thinking or has already finished. Sometimes there is a spinning doohicky. Sometimes not. So I wait.

After leaving the room and returning later, nothing has happened.

A follow-up prompt: Where is the guide? I don’t see it.

The follow-up response: I apologize for that oversight! I mentioned the guide but did not output the file in our chat.

“In response to your query, I created a guide. But I forgot to show you the guide.”  That’s the A in AI.

© jumpingfish by David Hasan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License