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Can AI do maths yet? Thoughts from a mathematician

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Re: Can AI do maths yet? Thoughts from a mathematician

#271

Post by portaouflop »

amanda99 wrote: post #266
Syzygies wrote: post #247

"Can AI do math for us" is the canonical wrong question. People want self-driving cars so they can drink and watch TV. We should crave tools that enhance our abilities, as tools have done since prehistoric times. I'm a research mathematician. In the 1980's I'd ask everyone I knew a question, and flip through the hard bound library volumes of Mathematical Reviews, hoping to recognize something. If I was lucky, I'd get…

> AI is often wrong, never knows when it's wrong, but people are like this too. When talking with various models of ChatGPT about research math, my biggest gripe is that it's either confidently right (10% of my work) or confidently wrong (90%). A human researcher would be right 15% of the time, unsure 50% of the time, and give helpful ideas that are right/helpful (25%) or wrong/a red herring (10%). And only 5% of the…

A human researcher that is basically right 40%-95% of the time would probably an Einstein level genius.

Just assume that the LLM is wrong and test their assumptions - math is one of the few disciplines where you can do that easily

Re: Can AI do maths yet? Thoughts from a mathematician

#272

Post by noFaceDiscoG668 »

tossandthrow wrote: post #11
noFaceDiscoG668 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried. I don't have the time to formulate and scrutinise adequate arguments, though. Do you? Anything anywhere you could point me to? The algorithms live entirely off the training data. They consistently fail to "abduct" (inference) beyond any language-in/of-the-training-specific information.

It is a gradual thing. Presumably the models are inferring things on runtime that was not a part of their training data. Anyhow, philosophically speaking you are also only exposed to what your senses pick up, but presumably you are able to infer things? As written: this is a dogma that stems from a limited understanding of what algorithmic processes are and the insistence that emergence can not happen from algorithmi…

[dead]

Re: Can AI do maths yet? Thoughts from a mathematician

#274

Post by heresie-dabord »

Syzygies wrote: post #247

"Can AI do math for us" is the canonical wrong question. People want self-driving cars so they can drink and watch TV. We should crave tools that enhance our abilities, as tools have done since prehistoric times. I'm a research mathematician. In the 1980's I'd ask everyone I knew a question, and flip through the hard bound library volumes of Mathematical Reviews, hoping to recognize something. If I was lucky, I'd get…

> Talking to fellow can be frustrating, and so is talking with AI, but AI conversations go faster and can take place in the middle of the night.

I made a slight change to generalise your statement, I think you have summarised the actual marketing opportunity.

Re: Can AI do maths yet? Thoughts from a mathematician

#275

Post by eleveriven »

Syzygies wrote: post #247

"Can AI do math for us" is the canonical wrong question. People want self-driving cars so they can drink and watch TV. We should crave tools that enhance our abilities, as tools have done since prehistoric times. I'm a research mathematician. In the 1980's I'd ask everyone I knew a question, and flip through the hard bound library volumes of Mathematical Reviews, hoping to recognize something. If I was lucky, I'd get…

The analogy with self-driving cars is spot on

Re: Can AI do maths yet? Thoughts from a mathematician

#276

Post by eleveriven »

amanda99 wrote: post #266
Syzygies wrote: post #247

"Can AI do math for us" is the canonical wrong question. People want self-driving cars so they can drink and watch TV. We should crave tools that enhance our abilities, as tools have done since prehistoric times. I'm a research mathematician. In the 1980's I'd ask everyone I knew a question, and flip through the hard bound library volumes of Mathematical Reviews, hoping to recognize something. If I was lucky, I'd get…

> AI is often wrong, never knows when it's wrong, but people are like this too. When talking with various models of ChatGPT about research math, my biggest gripe is that it's either confidently right (10% of my work) or confidently wrong (90%). A human researcher would be right 15% of the time, unsure 50% of the time, and give helpful ideas that are right/helpful (25%) or wrong/a red herring (10%). And only 5% of the…

Do you think there’s potential for AI to develop a kind of probabilistic reasoning?

Re: Can AI do maths yet? Thoughts from a mathematician

#277

Post by [deleted] »

Syzygies wrote: post #247

"Can AI do math for us" is the canonical wrong question. People want self-driving cars so they can drink and watch TV. We should crave tools that enhance our abilities, as tools have done since prehistoric times. I'm a research mathematician. In the 1980's I'd ask everyone I knew a question, and flip through the hard bound library volumes of Mathematical Reviews, hoping to recognize something. If I was lucky, I'd get…

[deleted]

Re: Can AI do maths yet? Thoughts from a mathematician

#278

Post by alphan0n »

alphan0n wrote: post #64

As far as ChatGPT goes, you may as well be asking: Can AI use a calculator? The answer is yes, it can utilize a stateful python environment and solve complex mathematical equations with ease.

Awful lot of shy downvotes.. Why not say something if you disagree?

Re: Can AI do maths yet? Thoughts from a mathematician

#279

Post by comp_throw7 »

bwfan123 wrote: post #228
sincerecook wrote: post #75

No it can't, and there's no such thing as AI. How is a thing that predicts the next-most-likely word going to do novel math? It can't even do existing math reliably because logical operations and statistical approximation are fundamentally different. It is fun watching grifters put lipstick on this thing and shop it around as a magic pig though.

openai and epochai (frontier math) are startups with a strong incentive to push such narratives. the real test will be in actual adoption in real world use cases. the management class has a strong incentive to believe in this narrative, since it helps them reduce labor cost. so they are investing in it. eventually, the emperor will be seen to have no clothes at least in some usecases for which it is being peddled rig…

Epoch is a non-profit research institute, not a startup.

Re: Can AI do maths yet? Thoughts from a mathematician

#280

Post by halayli »

amanda99 wrote: post #266
Syzygies wrote: post #247

"Can AI do math for us" is the canonical wrong question. People want self-driving cars so they can drink and watch TV. We should crave tools that enhance our abilities, as tools have done since prehistoric times. I'm a research mathematician. In the 1980's I'd ask everyone I knew a question, and flip through the hard bound library volumes of Mathematical Reviews, hoping to recognize something. If I was lucky, I'd get…

> AI is often wrong, never knows when it's wrong, but people are like this too. When talking with various models of ChatGPT about research math, my biggest gripe is that it's either confidently right (10% of my work) or confidently wrong (90%). A human researcher would be right 15% of the time, unsure 50% of the time, and give helpful ideas that are right/helpful (25%) or wrong/a red herring (10%). And only 5% of the…

these numbers are just your perception. The way you ask the question will very much influence the output and certain topics more than others. I get much better results when I share my certainty levels in my questions and say things like "if at all", "if any" etc.
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