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A recent experience with ChatGPT 5.5 Pro

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Re: A recent experience with ChatGPT 5.5 Pro

#151

Post by alexashka »

MinimalAction wrote: post #12

As a graduate student, this piece made me sad. I always believed that my work speaks for itself and transcends beyond my limited time on this cosmic experience. This notion of immortality was just a small intangible bonus I hoped for when I jumped into grad school. AI is making me feel less worthy.

> I always believed that my work speaks for itself and transcends beyond my limited time on this cosmic experience

Any statement preceded by the word 'believe' is a coping mechanism.

> This notion of immortality was just a small intangible bonus I hoped for when I jumped into grad school

Any statement preceded by the word 'hope' is a coping mechanism.

> AI is making me feel less worthy

Worth comes from understanding, not achievement.

Re: A recent experience with ChatGPT 5.5 Pro

#153

Post by auggierose »

globular-toast wrote: post #65

I wish people would stop generating stuff they don't understand only to forward it to someone who does. Something about that really rubs me the wrong way.

Lol. If Gowers sends you a piece of math he doesn't quite understand because he thinks that you might, that is something you celebrate.

Re: A recent experience with ChatGPT 5.5 Pro

#154

Post by Lionga »

aurareturn wrote: post #147
FrojoS wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's no reason to believe the progress of LLMs [...] will stop anytime soon Wrong. Every advancement has followed a s curve. Where we are on that curve is anyones guess. Or maybe "this time its different".

He said "will stop anytime soon". He didn't say forever.

Which still makes no sense. There is the same chance we are flatlining now as that we are flatlining in e.g. 3 years or 5 years.

Re: A recent experience with ChatGPT 5.5 Pro

#155

Post by freedomben »

_the_inflator wrote: post #142
ziotom78 wrote: post #62

I am a physics professor and often use Gemini to check my papers. It is a formidable tool: it was able to find a clerical error (a missing imaginary unit in a complex mathematical expression) I was not able to find for days, and it often underlines connections between concepts and ideas that I overlooked. However, it often makes conceptual errors that I can spot only because I have good knowledge of the topic I am di…

I agree and put it this way: LLMs sound so convincing presenting you the work it does rose colored and promising to give you more if you keep going. There is a 50/50 chance that it turns out to be right or letting you jump of the cliff. Only the trip stays the same beautiful 5 star plus travel. Also, spotting an error and telling LLM makes it in most cases worse, because the LLM wants to please you and goes on to apo…

> Gemini to me is the most unpredictable LLM while GPT works best overall for me.

This nails an important thing IMHO. I've absolutely noticed this, for better or worse. Gemini can produce surprisingly excellent things, but it's unpredictability make me go for GPT when I only want to ask it once.

Re: A recent experience with ChatGPT 5.5 Pro

#156

Post by alexashka »

jlarcombe wrote: post #44
whatever120 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are worthy. You will hone your skills in grad school and be able to command these AIs better than somebody who hasn’t struggled with hard problems for a long time.

A depressing thought that all that work is just so you can "command AIs better"

All that work to kick a ball into a net.

Nobody looks at this species and goes hm, rational and reasonable :)

Re: A recent experience with ChatGPT 5.5 Pro

#157

Post by nerdsniper »

NotOscarWilde wrote: post #11

As a TCS assistant professor from Eastern Europe, I always am a little jealous of the biggest names in math having such an easy access to the expensive, long thinking models. Paying for Pro from any of my current academic budgets is completely ouf of the field of reality here -- all budgets tend to have restricted uses and software payments fit into very few categories. Effectively, I'd have to ask for a brand new gr…

I believe ChatGPT 5.5 Pro access is available for $100/month, is that an unrealistic level of expense for someone in your position and geography? Even if the university won't pay for it, it seems you'd like to use this tool for your own goals.

I'm not trying to shame here, just curious whether this is completely unattainable for most researchers in your area.

Re: A recent experience with ChatGPT 5.5 Pro

#158

Post by freedomben »

illiac786 wrote: post #122
ziotom78 wrote: post #62

I am a physics professor and often use Gemini to check my papers. It is a formidable tool: it was able to find a clerical error (a missing imaginary unit in a complex mathematical expression) I was not able to find for days, and it often underlines connections between concepts and ideas that I overlooked. However, it often makes conceptual errors that I can spot only because I have good knowledge of the topic I am di…

Using the word “Mentoring” is anthropomorphic and subconsciously makes you think it will learn. It does not, and it is for the human brain a formidable task to remember that something as smart as an LLM does not learn. I keep catching myself making the same mistake. It’s also because it is so annoying to have to manage the memory of the LLM with custom prompts/instructions manually. I have not yet played with the lon…

I mostly agree, though after a mentoring session you can ask it to write skill or a memory and it can be reasonably durable. For Claude at least, the memories work pretty well (though I am still at a small scale with them. As they grow it might start to break somewhat. Doesn't always work, but has often enough that I thought it worth a mention.

Re: A recent experience with ChatGPT 5.5 Pro

#159

Post by tempaccount5050 »

bambax wrote: post #107
pmontra wrote: post #6

It's a very long post with a mix of technical (math) and philosophical sections. Here are the most striking points to reflect upon IMHO. > It seems to me that training beginning PhD students to do research [...] has just got harder, since one obvious way to help somebody get started is to give them a problem that looks as though it might be a relatively gentle one. If LLMs are at the point where they can solve “gentl…

> by solving hard problems you get an insight into the problem-solving process itself, at least in your area of expertise, in a way that you simply don’t if all you do is read other people’s solutions. One consequence of this is that people who have themselves solved difficult problems are likely to be significantly better at using solving problems with the help of AI, just as very good coders are better at vibe codi…

Are you a cutting edge research scientist or something? Everyone I know works in the same domain every day. The problems are the same. People aren't solving brand new problems to humanity every day. We make budgets and look at ticket counts. Roll out patches. Replace hardware. Upgrade software packages. Make a new dashboard to track a project. I guess if every day is a completely novel thing for you, ok. I feel like the goalposts have moved to an absolutely ridiculous place. Oh no, I won't have a bunch of random error log numbers memorized anymore? Who gives a shit. I just want to afford a place to live so I can play my guitar and make something good for dinner. Maybe I'm just old, but I don't see why the average person needs to be a fuckin genius problem solver.

Re: A recent experience with ChatGPT 5.5 Pro

#160

Post by energy123 »

wood_spirit wrote: post #85
ziotom78 wrote: post #62

I am a physics professor and often use Gemini to check my papers. It is a formidable tool: it was able to find a clerical error (a missing imaginary unit in a complex mathematical expression) I was not able to find for days, and it often underlines connections between concepts and ideas that I overlooked. However, it often makes conceptual errors that I can spot only because I have good knowledge of the topic I am di…

Chiming in to agree but clarify that the latest sota models are no better than Gemini. I put my stuff through several sota models and round robin them in adversarial collaboration and they are all useful even though, fundamentally, they don’t “understand” anything. But they are super useful delegates as long as deciding on the problem and approach and solution all sits safely in your head so you can challenge them an…

Basically all Erdos problems that get solved with AI use ChatGPT 5.* Pro, not Gemini/Opus.
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