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An OpenAI model has disproved a central conjecture in discrete geometry

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Re: An OpenAI model has disproved a central conjecture in discrete geometry

#111

I dunno, I'm skeptical without proof. I've had the MAX+ plan for a while and I'm sorry, the quality between GPT vs Claude is night and day difference. Claude understands. GPT stumbles over every request I give it.

Weird thing to say about a report which literally has the attached mathematical proof.

[deleted]

Re: An OpenAI model has disproved a central conjecture in discrete geometry

#113
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what basis do you have for assuming an LLM is fundamentally incapable of doing this?

Because by definition LLMs are permutation machines, not creativity machines. (My premise, which you may disagree with, is that creativity/imagination/artistry is not merely permutation.)

It pretty much is, otherwise it is randomness or entropy.

Re: An OpenAI model has disproved a central conjecture in discrete geometry

#114

As I have stated before, AI will win a fields medal before it can manage a McDonald's A difficult part was constructing a chess board on which to play math (Lean). Now it's just pattern recognition and computation. LLMs are just the beginning, we'll see more specialized math AI resembling StockFish soon.

> A difficult part was constructing a chess board on which to play math (Lean). Now it's just pattern recognition and computation.

However, this was not verified in Lean. This was purely plain language in and out. I think, in many ways, this is a quite exciting demonstration of exactly the opposite of the point you're making. Verification comes in when you want to offload checking proofs to computers as well. As it stands, this proof was hand-verified by a group of mathematicians in the field.

Re: An OpenAI model has disproved a central conjecture in discrete geometry

#116

For anyone using LLMs heavily for coding, this shouldn't be too surprising. It was just a matter of time. Mathematicians make new discoveries by building and applying mathematical tools in new ways. It is tons of iterative work, following hunches and exploring connections. While true that LLMs can't truly "make discoveries" since they have no sense of what that would mean, they can Monte Carlo every mathematical tool…

There is a long and interesting recent essay on that topic by a mathematician: https://davidbessis.substack.com/p/the-fall-of-the-theorem-e...

Re: An OpenAI model has disproved a central conjecture in discrete geometry

#117

One thing seems for certain is that OpenAI models hold a distinct lead in academics over Anthropic and Google models. For those in academics, is OpenAI the vendor of choice?

Gemini seems better trained for learning and I think Google has made a more deliberate effort to optimize for pedagoical best practices. (E.g. tutoring, formative feedback, cognitive load optimization) As far as academic research is concerned (e.g. this threads topic), I can't say.

Agreed I usually use Gemini for explaining concepts and ChatGPT for getting things done on research projects.

Re: An OpenAI model has disproved a central conjecture in discrete geometry

#118
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what basis do you have for assuming an LLM is fundamentally incapable of doing this?

Because by definition LLMs are permutation machines, not creativity machines. (My premise, which you may disagree with, is that creativity/imagination/artistry is not merely permutation.)

god of the gaps

Re: An OpenAI model has disproved a central conjecture in discrete geometry

#120

To the “LLMs just interpolate their training data” crowd: Ayer, and in a different way early Wittgenstein, held that mathematical truths don’t report new facts about the world. Proofs unfold what is already implicit in axioms, definitions, symbols, and rules. I think that idea is deeply fascinating, AND have no problem that we still credit mathematicians with discoveries. So either “recombining existing material” isn…

I think you are conflating composition and prediction. LLMs don't compose higher abstractions from the "axioms, symbols and rules", they simply predict the next token, like a really large spinning wheel.

Yes they do…? Who cares if they just predict the next token? The outcome is that they can invent new abstractions. You could claim that the invention of this new idea is a combination of an LLM and a harness, but that combination can solve logic puzzles and invent abstractions. If a really large spinning wheel could invent proofs that were previously unsolved, that would be a wildly amazing spinning wheel. I view LLMs similarly. It is just fancy autocomplete, but look what we can do with it!

Said differently, what is prediction but composition projected forward through time/ideas?

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