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- Hacker News
- What I predicted 9 months ago came to pass:
> "a scenario in which a large automated proof is achieved but there would be no practical means of getting any understanding of what it means"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46284897#46286785
That is precisely the concern of mathematicians (getting proof without getting the knowledge to humanity):
> But solving problems is only a tool and proxy for achieving the primary goal of conceptual understanding and insight. Forgetting this in the world of AI may turn the tool against the primary goal. Indeed, the mass production at faster and faster pace of "true/false" statements could destroy fertile ground instead of breathing life into new ideas.
I predict it's only going to get worse. So far, in software, all AI companies push for results that you don't necessarily need to understand (don't look at the code). I don't see any reason why they would change that posture for math.
"Your advice for making AI-obtained proof are sensible, but AI has progressed too much and I'm afraid you're obsolete and all math is now a compiler target and not an actual craft", is what I predict based on the exact same thing happening to software recently.
by gaigalas - It feels like publicity stunt. Of they really care about research, they would at least have given more reasonable citations in the Navier-Stokes paper.by robotpepi
- > The group will operate independently from OpenAI. The group will have the freedom to offer advice we have not requested, comment on OpenAI’s impact on mathematics, and make its advice public.
That seems so empty. I also operate independently from them and have the freedom to tell them things they haven't requested and comment on their impact and do so publicly. But I doesn't have any impact on OpenAI. If they're trying to say how this will actually have any impact on anything at all, they're doing a shit job.
by 6gvONxR4sf7o - > internal progress on mathematics
This alone feels like a horrible new paradigm
- Like in Yes Minister, when they from a committee for a "full investigation". Gowers is on it, of course.by 1242asZ
- "Advisory Group"
Importantly, the group will not be responsible for advising us on how to pace our internal progress on mathematics.by mwkaufma - Mathematics has enough cultural capital within the AI companies that they get to have this "advisory board".
Nobody else is getting that. When/If the severe impacts on labor materialize, workers won't get an advisory board. They will just get fired, and the companies will celebrate it as efficiency wins.
I think it's time to get very very real about regulation/taxation. Token/Compute sales tax that gets redistributed as UBI?
by Certhas - There are three big things in this announcement it seems.
> In addition to resolving the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize problem , this model has now resolved more than 100 long-standing open problems across most areas of mathematics.
Rumor was they were sitting on the solution to the Hodge conjecture. I wonder if thats one of these.
> The group will advise on the review and communication of emerging results.
With hundreds of results, and the seeming exponential vertical from earlier in summer (10 major results from Astra, now hundreds...) I do wonder how exactly such a group decides to disseminate results. If it will instantly bottleneck. I mean I checked their site and it seems to be a google form asking for opinions.
> Importantly, the group will not be responsible for advising us on how to pace our internal progress on mathematics.
Spicy. I think the super intelligence benchmark for me is P vs NP. That one I know is proper hard and feel it in my bones.
In related notes I watched a panel of mathematicians discuss AI recently on YouTubes. Specifically the hlf26 one. [0]. I also watched Terrence Taos recent one on SAIR [1]. In addition to a few others like Tom Rocks and Martin Hairer [2]. Whats abundantly clear is that no one has any answers to what this means for the future of mathematics. They all waffle about what anyone is going to be doing in a few years.
[0] https://youtu.be/H7_d_sgui6o
by kingstnap