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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

#801

Post by pishpash »

lefra wrote: post #790
SyzygyRhythm wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's already how civilization works. There's no one person that knows everything about (say) modern food production, from top to bottom. If it ever stopped working (because too much knowledge was lost somehow), most people would die. And yet the system seems fairly resilient. Mostly, only local knowledge ever seems to be necessary to keep the whole thing running. Super-intelligence (or even just super-normal-intell…

> There's no one person that knows everything about (say) modern food production True, but it is possible to assemble a team of people that does, with backup for each person. There's also teachers and written knowledge to educate new team members. That's what makes it resilient. I think that's a very different situation from what's decribed.

People still do grow their own food for self sufficiency. I am sure there will be luddites who live in self-sufficient communes like the Amish.

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

#802

Post by wartywhoa23 »

doctorwho42 wrote: post #635
ted_dunning wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it terrify you to look at children? Not so many years from now, some of them will surpass you. A few years after that all (that survive to that point) will surpass you. Does that terrify you just as much?

AI is not a living or conscience entity, no matter what the hype men are selling society. A child is a living, breathing, growing, and changing conscious entity. It is the natural order for the young to supplant the old, no matter what the politicians and billionaires desire. "AI" - terrifies anyone who understands the pact our society rests upon: that labor is valued and can be exchanged for goods and services to su…

Ice-nine was no fiction.

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

#803

Post by ffaccount2 »

wartywhoa23 wrote: post #766
biztos wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no mathematician but it seems like if this happens, we get to a quite intriguing place as a species. Say we achieve interstellar travel, but nobody actually knows how it works. Or we cure cancer, but the "cure" requires a microrobotic implant, and it runs as a blackbox AI, and only the other AIs can make one, and there's no guarantee they will know how to make one tomorrow. Or we solve global warming but it requi…

Noble " save the humankind using the tech nobody fucking understands " textbook goals like curing cancer, solving global warming and achieving interstellar travel would always turn up when owners of trillions of dollars place orders on positive AI narratives, but in reality all of that will wither down to " It's what plants crave! It's got electrolytes. "

>ve AI narratives, but in reality all of that WILL wither down to...

Looks like you're pretty sure of that. Every time I see argument like this delivered with confidence I wonder how is it different from, say, digital calculators. Or better yet, books - Greek philosophers moaned that young people will stop understanding anything and just check books when they want to know anything.

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

#804

Post by pishpash »

loandbehold wrote: post #796
biztos wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no mathematician but it seems like if this happens, we get to a quite intriguing place as a species. Say we achieve interstellar travel, but nobody actually knows how it works. Or we cure cancer, but the "cure" requires a microrobotic implant, and it runs as a blackbox AI, and only the other AIs can make one, and there's no guarantee they will know how to make one tomorrow. Or we solve global warming but it requi…

This is pretty much what underlies AI doomer argument of people like EY. Humans will gradually hand over civilization to black box AI they can't understand. As AI becomes more complex and powerful it will be harder and harder to control.

That assumes everyone will do so. Some people won't, and it's not clear you need a large number of such, a priesthood if you like, to survive as a species without AI.

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

#805

Post by RealityVoid »

computerex wrote: post #716
sigmoid10 wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an odd summary of the talk. He was talking about how the explicit goal of solving a problem is kind of becoming trivialized, but the abundance of 100-page AI generated proofs will not help the implicit goal of furthering human understanding, because we lack the bandwidth to really digest them. Adhering to things like (human-focused) academic etiquette is a different problem and can probably easily be solved b…

I feel like that’s already becoming true. I sometimes work on problems/projects where the AI agent is definitely more qualified than me to call the shots. For example, this library here for deep learning is 100% ai generated and far beyond my technical capabilities. https://github.com/computerex/dlgo

I find AI a great scaffolding for improving understanding and mental models. BUT! It's all in how you use it.

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

#806

Post by nashadelic »

cpard wrote: post #224

The proof brings unexpected, sophisticated ideas from algebraic number theory to bear on an elementary geometric question. The more I read about these achievements the more I get a feeling that a lot of the power of these models comes from having prior knowledge on every possible field and having zero problems transferring to new domains. To me the potential beauty of this is that these tools might help us break thro…

There are so many research papers; just finding a solution to, say, a bio problem in a deep math paper would be a gold mine of opportunity. Very exciting times!

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

#807

Post by pishpash »

worldsayshi wrote: post #754
biztos wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no mathematician but it seems like if this happens, we get to a quite intriguing place as a species. Say we achieve interstellar travel, but nobody actually knows how it works. Or we cure cancer, but the "cure" requires a microrobotic implant, and it runs as a blackbox AI, and only the other AIs can make one, and there's no guarantee they will know how to make one tomorrow. Or we solve global warming but it requi…

Why can't we (or AI) invent ways to explain information that makes it much more digestible? And the solutions simpler? Why is it necessary to continue to increase complexity when we get better intelligence? Can't we find more simple solutions? Or at least more explainable.

Is particle physics digestible even if it is explainable? Some things are not simple, cannot be not abstract, and will not be understood by most, or all, people.

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

#808

Post by wartywhoa23 »

ninjagoo wrote: post #592
School-Cotton wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it excite you, rather than terrifying you? The better LLMs get at math, the closer the expertise you spent your whole life building is to being worthless. Along with all the rest of what humans find meaningful and fulfilling.

> the closer the expertise you spent your whole life building is to being worthless. Perhaps it is time for life to be considered intrinsically valuable, instead of being "worthy" only based on output or capability. Disability, animal and environmental advocates have been fighting for this for a long time. Not too long ago women and minorities were in the same boat. Even now, there are many advocating and fighting fo…

These all are valid, noble points I also used to brood about while being young and financially supported by my parents.

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

#809

Post by inglor_cz »

diordiderot wrote: post #732
virgildotcodes wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not in academia myself, and I think AI solving all our problems ASAP is ideal, even if it means no humans get attribution. What I’m saying is that the ultimate goal of those in power are not these sorts of altruistic or even scientific pursuits, and that the massive labor disruption and hyper concentration of power in the hands of those who are proving time and again that advancement of science and benefiting the…

Oh good. But I think you're over estimating the 'concentration of power', and under estimating 'benefiting the whole of humanity' Most homeless people have smartphones, and consistent access to food and clean water. Your average 'poor person' in America has HVAC. An unimaginable luxury in the EU

"An unimaginable luxury in the EU"

Eh, don't be silly. In the places where the summer is hot enough (or, more precise, where it used to be hot enough), I have seen plenty of AC units on shabby buildings, even on old Commie apartment blocs in Romania.

AC is not that expensive.

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

#810

Post by ben_w »

biztos wrote: post #731
teiferer wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every day, it grows harder and harder to contain a mental map of recent relevant progress by simple virtue of the amount being produced. And by opening the door to LLM-generated results, you'll see greater and greater amounts without any hope of ever navigating this field again without machine help. It's a little like a software project which more and more gets extended by a AI agents with less and less review by h…

I'm no mathematician but it seems like if this happens, we get to a quite intriguing place as a species. Say we achieve interstellar travel, but nobody actually knows how it works. Or we cure cancer, but the "cure" requires a microrobotic implant, and it runs as a blackbox AI, and only the other AIs can make one, and there's no guarantee they will know how to make one tomorrow. Or we solve global warming but it requi…

The first two are open enough that they may be as you say*, but we already know how to solve global warming, it's more of how much do we want to.

Green energy and transport technology is now at the point where people save the world and get rich trying, just as fast as they can build the factories.

Food's climate impact is harder, because the problem isn't technical, it's convincing people to give up beef (and other things, but mostly beef).

* quantum mechanics and general relativity are famously difficult to get to grips with

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