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Epoch confirms GPT5.4 Pro solved a frontier math open problem

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Re: Epoch confirms GPT5.4 Pro solved a frontier math open problem

#61

Post by maxrmk »

storus wrote: post #55
Validark wrote: post #33

I have long said I am an AI doubter until AI could print out the answers to hard problems or ones requiring tons of innovation. Assuming this is verified to be correct (not by AI) then I just became a believer. I would like to see a few more AI inventions to know for sure, but wow, it really is a new and exciting world. I really hope we use this intelligence resource to make the world better.

AI is a remixer; it remixes all known ideas together. It won't come up with new ideas though; the LLMs just predict the most likely next token based on the context. That means the group of characters it outputs must have been quite common in the past. It won't add a new group of characters it has never seen before on its own.

I don't think this is a correct explanation of how things work these days. RL has really changed things.

Re: Epoch confirms GPT5.4 Pro solved a frontier math open problem

#62

Post by Jarwain »

storus wrote: post #55
Validark wrote: post #33

I have long said I am an AI doubter until AI could print out the answers to hard problems or ones requiring tons of innovation. Assuming this is verified to be correct (not by AI) then I just became a believer. I would like to see a few more AI inventions to know for sure, but wow, it really is a new and exciting world. I really hope we use this intelligence resource to make the world better.

AI is a remixer; it remixes all known ideas together. It won't come up with new ideas though; the LLMs just predict the most likely next token based on the context. That means the group of characters it outputs must have been quite common in the past. It won't add a new group of characters it has never seen before on its own.

I mean it's not going to invent new words no, but it can figure out new sentences or paragraphs, even ones it hasn't seen before, if it's highly likely based on its training and context. Those new sentences and paragraphs may describe new ideas, though!

Re: Epoch confirms GPT5.4 Pro solved a frontier math open problem

#63

Post by qnleigh »

storus wrote: post #55
Validark wrote: post #33

I have long said I am an AI doubter until AI could print out the answers to hard problems or ones requiring tons of innovation. Assuming this is verified to be correct (not by AI) then I just became a believer. I would like to see a few more AI inventions to know for sure, but wow, it really is a new and exciting world. I really hope we use this intelligence resource to make the world better.

AI is a remixer; it remixes all known ideas together. It won't come up with new ideas though; the LLMs just predict the most likely next token based on the context. That means the group of characters it outputs must have been quite common in the past. It won't add a new group of characters it has never seen before on its own.

But human researchers are also remixers. Copying something I commented below:

> Speaking as a researcher, the line between new ideas and existing knowledge is very blurry and maybe doesn't even exist. The vast majority of research papers get new results by combining existing ideas in novel ways. This process can lead to genuinely new ideas, because the results of a good project teach you unexpected things.

Re: Epoch confirms GPT5.4 Pro solved a frontier math open problem

#64

Post by raincole »

kranner wrote: post #44
raincole wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, it's solving a problem.

Bet you didn't come up with that comment by first discarding a bunch of unsuitable comments.

I hired an artist for an oil painting.

The artist drew 10 pencil sketches and said "hmm I think this one works the best" and finished the painting based on it.

I said he didn't one shot it and therefore he has no ability to paint, and refused to pay him.

Re: Epoch confirms GPT5.4 Pro solved a frontier math open problem

#65

Post by snemvalts »

Validark wrote: post #33

I have long said I am an AI doubter until AI could print out the answers to hard problems or ones requiring tons of innovation. Assuming this is verified to be correct (not by AI) then I just became a believer. I would like to see a few more AI inventions to know for sure, but wow, it really is a new and exciting world. I really hope we use this intelligence resource to make the world better.

Math and coding competition problems are easier to train because of strict rules and cheap verification. But once you go beyond that to less defined things such as code quality, where even humans have hard time putting down concrete axioms, they start to hallucinate more and become less useful.

We are missing the value function that allowed AlphaGo to go from mid range player trained on human moves to superhuman by playing itself. As we have only made progress on unsupervised learning, and RL is constrained as above, I don't see this getting better.

Re: Epoch confirms GPT5.4 Pro solved a frontier math open problem

#66

Post by sneak »

storus wrote: post #55
Validark wrote: post #33

I have long said I am an AI doubter until AI could print out the answers to hard problems or ones requiring tons of innovation. Assuming this is verified to be correct (not by AI) then I just became a believer. I would like to see a few more AI inventions to know for sure, but wow, it really is a new and exciting world. I really hope we use this intelligence resource to make the world better.

AI is a remixer; it remixes all known ideas together. It won't come up with new ideas though; the LLMs just predict the most likely next token based on the context. That means the group of characters it outputs must have been quite common in the past. It won't add a new group of characters it has never seen before on its own.

> That means the group of characters it outputs must have been quite common in the past. It won't add a new group of characters it has never seen before on its own.

This is false.

Re: Epoch confirms GPT5.4 Pro solved a frontier math open problem

#67

Post by altmanaltman »

storus wrote: post #55
Validark wrote: post #33

I have long said I am an AI doubter until AI could print out the answers to hard problems or ones requiring tons of innovation. Assuming this is verified to be correct (not by AI) then I just became a believer. I would like to see a few more AI inventions to know for sure, but wow, it really is a new and exciting world. I really hope we use this intelligence resource to make the world better.

AI is a remixer; it remixes all known ideas together. It won't come up with new ideas though; the LLMs just predict the most likely next token based on the context. That means the group of characters it outputs must have been quite common in the past. It won't add a new group of characters it has never seen before on its own.

Yeah but you're thinking of AI as like a person in a lab doing creative stuff. It is used by scientists/researchers as a tool *because* it is a good remixer.

Nobody is saying this means AI is superintelligence or largely creative but rather very smart people can use AI to do interesting things that are objectively useful. And that is cool in its own way.

Re: Epoch confirms GPT5.4 Pro solved a frontier math open problem

#68

Post by energy123 »

maxrmk wrote: post #61
storus wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is a remixer; it remixes all known ideas together. It won't come up with new ideas though; the LLMs just predict the most likely next token based on the context. That means the group of characters it outputs must have been quite common in the past. It won't add a new group of characters it has never seen before on its own.

I don't think this is a correct explanation of how things work these days. RL has really changed things.

Models based on RL are still just remixers as defined above, but their distribution can cover things that are unknown to humans due to being present in the synthetic training data, but not present in the corpus of human awareness. AlphaGo's move 37 is an example. It appears creative and new to outside observers, and it is creative and new, but it's not because the model is figuring out something new on the spot, it's because similar new things appeared in the synthetic training data used to train the model, and the model is summoning those patterns at inference time.

Re: Epoch confirms GPT5.4 Pro solved a frontier math open problem

#69

Post by virgildotcodes »

slopinthebag wrote: post #59
virgildotcodes wrote: post #56

I don't know why I am still perpetually shocked that the default assumption is that humans are somehow unique. It's this pervasive belief that underlies so much discussion around what it means to be intelligent. The null hypothesis goes out the window. People constantly make comments like "well it's just trying a bunch of stuff until something works" and it seems that they do not pause for a moment to consider whethe…

> I don't know why I am still perpetually shocked that the default assumption is that humans are somehow unique. Uh, because up until and including now, we are...?

Every living thing on Earth is unique. Every rock is unique in virtually infinite ways from the next otherwise identical rock.

There are also a tremendous number of similarities between all living things and between rocks (and between rocks and living things).

Most ways in which things are unique are arguably uninteresting.

The default mode, the null hypothesis should be to assume that human intelligence isn't interestingly unique unless it can be proven otherwise.

In these repeated discussions around AI, there is criticism over the way an AI solves a problem, without any actual critical thought about the way humans solve problems.

The latter is left up to the assumption that "of course humans do X differently" and if you press you invariably end up at something couched in a vague mysticism about our inner-workings.

Humans apparently create something from nothing, without the recombination of any prior knowledge or outside information, and they get it right on the first try. Through what, divine inspiration from the God who made us and only us in His image?

Re: Epoch confirms GPT5.4 Pro solved a frontier math open problem

#70

Post by sneak »

Jarwain wrote: post #62
storus wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is a remixer; it remixes all known ideas together. It won't come up with new ideas though; the LLMs just predict the most likely next token based on the context. That means the group of characters it outputs must have been quite common in the past. It won't add a new group of characters it has never seen before on its own.

I mean it's not going to invent new words no, but it can figure out new sentences or paragraphs, even ones it hasn't seen before, if it's highly likely based on its training and context. Those new sentences and paragraphs may describe new ideas, though!

LLMs are absolutely capable of inventing new words, just as they are capable of writing code that they have never seen in their training data.
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