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Amateur armed with ChatGPT solves an Erdős problem

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Re: Amateur armed with ChatGPT solves an Erdős problem

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember when people thought multiplying numbers, remembering a large number of facts, and being good at rote calculations was intelligence? Some people think that multiplying numbers, remembering a large number of facts, and being good at calculations is intelligence. Most intelligent people do not think that. Eventually, we will arrive at the same conclusion for what LLMs are doing now.

Remember when people thought solving Erdos problems required intelligence? Is there anything an LLM could ever do that would cound as intelligence? Surely the trend has to break at some point, if so what would be the thing that crosses the line to into real intelligence?

I've spend a good chunk of time formalising mathematics.

Doing formalized mathematics is as intelligent as multiplying numbers together.

The only reason why it's so hard now is that the standard notation is the equivalent of Roman numerals.

When you start using a sane metalanguage, and not just augmrnted English, to do proofs you gain the same increase in capabilities as going from word equations to algebra.

Re: Amateur armed with ChatGPT solves an Erdős problem

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... shit that solved an apparently significant Erdős problem. That is not nothing , no matter how much you hate AI.

It shows that AI is apparently very good at brute-forcing.

Are the human mathematicians who wanted to solve this problem just too stupid to brute force for 80 minutes?

Re: Amateur armed with ChatGPT solves an Erdős problem

#104

I wonder if the rationalizations people come up with for why this isn't real intelligence will be as creative as ChatGPTs solution.

None of it is really from logical thought. The rationalizations don't make any sense, but they haven't for a while. It's an emotional response. Honestly, It's to be expected.

Re: Amateur armed with ChatGPT solves an Erdős problem

#105
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solving open math problems is strong evidence of intelligence so there's not really any need for rationalization? I don't understand why intelligence would require intent or motive? Isn't intent just the behaviour of making a specific thing happen rather than other things?

I'm curious, do you think that this also applies to stable diffusion? Are these models "creative" too?

Yeah? Those models are creative.

Re: Amateur armed with ChatGPT solves an Erdős problem

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPT 5.5 Pro is not available to any plan outside of ChatGPT Pro ($100 or $200) tier or the API as far as consumer access.

Yes, but don't we expect GPT 5.5 Pro will eventually be a free tier? Maybe I'm missing something because I only use the free tier. But the free tier has gotten way better over the last few years. I'm pretty sure, based on descriptions on this site from paid subscribers, that the free tier now is better than the paid tier of say 2 years ago. That's the lag I'm wondering about.

Free ChatGPT is like a fast car with a barely responsive steering wheel. Guardrails on that thing are insane. Even for math. It wont let you think. It will try to fix mistakes you havent even made yet based on intent that was ascribed to you for no reason. It veers off in some crazy directions thinking that's what you meant and trying to address even a little bit of that creates almost a combinatorial explosion of even more wrong things. Is why I stick to Claude. The latter is chill and only addresses what you had typed. Isn't verbose and actually asks you what you getting at with your post. That said, ChatGPT is more technical and can easily solve math problems that stump Claude.

Re: Amateur armed with ChatGPT solves an Erdős problem

#107
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solving open math problems is strong evidence of intelligence so there's not really any need for rationalization? I don't understand why intelligence would require intent or motive? Isn't intent just the behaviour of making a specific thing happen rather than other things?

I'm curious, do you think that this also applies to stable diffusion? Are these models "creative" too?

I haven't used stable diffusion enough to have a strong opinion on it. But my thinking is LLMs have only recently started contributing novel solutions to problems, so maybe there is some threshold above which there's less sloppy remixing of training data and more ability to form novel insights, and image generators haven't crossed this line yet.

Re: Amateur armed with ChatGPT solves an Erdős problem

#110

The LLM took an entirely different route, using a formula that was well known in related parts of math, but which no one had thought to apply to this type of question. Of course LLMs are still absolutely useless at actual maths computation, but I think this is one area where AI can excel --- the ability to combine many sources of knowledge and synthesise, may sometimes yield very useful results. Also reminds me of th…

> Every Mathematician Has Only a Few Tricks > > A long time ago an older and well-known number theorist made some disparaging remarks about Paul Erdös’s work. > You admire Erdös’s contributions to mathematics as much as I do, > and I felt annoyed when the older mathematician flatly and definitively stated > that all of Erdös’s work could be “reduced” to a few tricks which Erdös repeatedly relied on in his proofs. > W…

I think when thinking about progress as a society, people need to internalize better that we all without exception are on this world for the first time.

We may have collectively filled libraries full of books, and created yottabytes of digital data, but in the end to create something novel somebody has to read and understand all of this stuff. Obviously this is not possible. Read one book per day from birth to death and you still only get to consume like 80*365=29200 books in the best case, from the millions upon millions of books that have been written.

So these "few tricks" are the accumulation of a lifetime of mathematical training, the culmination of the slice of knowledge that the respective mathematician immersed themselves into. To discover new math and become famous you need both the talent and skill to apply your knowledge in novel ways, but also be lucky that you picked a field of math that has novel things with interesting applications to discover plus you picked up the right tools and right mental model that allows you to discover these things.

This does not go for math only, but also for pretty much all other non-trivial fields. There is a reason why history repeats.

And it's actually a compelling argument why AI is still a big deal even though it's at its core a parrot. It's a parrot yes, but compared to a human, it actually was able to ingest the entirety of human knowledge.

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