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Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

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Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#271

Post by plastic-enjoyer »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #267
plastic-enjoyer wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Depends entirely on whether "the market" ends up valuing what humans add to various artistic processes. No, it does not, at least for arts. There is a chance, that AI will free art from it's utility or the necessary to create value. Maybe graphic designers and illustrators will lose their jobs due automatization, but most paid art (concept work, corporate design) was instrumental compromise anyway. Take away the co…

That depends entirely on what's meant by "will be fine" and "AI will liberate them". I was assuming you meant something along the lines of gainful employment. If instead you meant performing a meaningful task then I'd counter that most engineers like to build finished products not wallow in minutia. You can still hand roll assembly but I don't think many developers lament the advent of the modern compiler. Instead pe…

Sure, but the compiler didn't promote the assembly programmer, it basically ended assembly programming. So which side of that is the engineer on? You're assuming we're the dev who got the compiler. But if the premise is that AI does the actual problem-solving, then we're the assembly and AI is the compiler.

> Engineers like to build finished products, not wallow in minutia

This only works if what you loved was having built the thing. If what you loved was the building itself, the solving, then "here's a way bigger system, the AI figured it out" isn't a win. It's just a promotion from maker to manager. And a lot of engineers specifically tried to avoid this promotion in their career.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#272

Post by bluealienpie »

threatripper wrote: post #261
andai wrote: post #257

> Mathematics produces not only a body of results, but also understanding, clarity, and judgment among the communities of mathematicians who have shaped them, often in the context of their own autonomously guided research. This expert knowledge is essential, both to effectively use mathematics, and to continue to articulate new and significant research questions. In a word, the job of the mathematics department is no…

While you are right in a way, I think you miss the point. In the past "computer" was a job description and mechanical power came from serfs. They surely developed skills we are lacking today but I'd argue that overall the world is a better place with digital computers and electrical motors. It frees up these people to do something else, something of higher value.

We argued that AI would free us to explore the arts. Instead it first came for written language and images. So what's left when it can write all the programs, drive all the cars, and AI sensors on farms can monitor and distribute nutrients. I remember watching TED Talks about how AI weapons need to be carefully studied, and instead we see them autonomously picking targets. I'm not seeing any higher values, instead I'm seeing how we're on a path to assured destruction.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#273

Post by rwl »

threatripper wrote: post #261
andai wrote: post #257

> Mathematics produces not only a body of results, but also understanding, clarity, and judgment among the communities of mathematicians who have shaped them, often in the context of their own autonomously guided research. This expert knowledge is essential, both to effectively use mathematics, and to continue to articulate new and significant research questions. In a word, the job of the mathematics department is no…

While you are right in a way, I think you miss the point. In the past "computer" was a job description and mechanical power came from serfs. They surely developed skills we are lacking today but I'd argue that overall the world is a better place with digital computers and electrical motors. It frees up these people to do something else, something of higher value.

Sure, the world is a better place with fewer serfs in it, but what exactly is of "higher value" than being a research mathematician? It's already a profession that consists essentially of exercising our highest and most distinctly human capacities: creativity, abstract reasoning, and passing the results of those on through a distinctive language and culture. I don't think the comparison with serfs is useful.

I'm sure most research mathematicians would like more freedom from some of the drudgery of their work (grading, admin, etc.), just like the rest of us. But we should be aiming for a world that allows more people to become mathematicians, not fewer.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#274

Post by naruhodo »

munificent wrote: post #170
zerobees wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Culturally, mathematics is a jobs program for nerds. The field very explicitly takes pride in working on problems that have no obvious applications, and most practitioners are funded publicly or supported by private endowments, with zero pressure to deliver specific results. Of course, this produces useful results every now and then, but it's not like we pursued ruthless efficiency / maximum rate of knowledge advance…

> We just let them do their thing, essentially treating them as artists and letting them pursue the craft for its own sake. I think we generally did that because that seemed to be the best known process for maximizing the quantity of useful mathematics that they occasionally stumble upon. It's not like we treat math as a charity project for eccentrics who like blackboards. What we want is new mathematical discoveries…

> It's not like we treat math as a charity project for eccentrics who like blackboards.

Love it! XD

I agree, and I think, as with physics, mathematical research produces building blocks whose utility won't be realised until later.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#275

Post by coldtea »

kamaal wrote: post #258
andai wrote: post #257

> Mathematics produces not only a body of results, but also understanding, clarity, and judgment among the communities of mathematicians who have shaped them, often in the context of their own autonomously guided research. This expert knowledge is essential, both to effectively use mathematics, and to continue to articulate new and significant research questions. In a word, the job of the mathematics department is no…

>>Similarly, the output of programming is not only a program, but also a programmer. It is you. This can be said about pretty much any job on earth. By that definition nothing should ever be automated. Everything thinks they are special, actually no one is. You become special by being rare. Find something that can be done by no one or only a scant few.

>By that definition nothing should ever be automated.

Many things shouldn't. Understanding is one of them.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#276

Post by coldtea »

kamaal wrote: post #268
sublinear wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but we've already painted ourselves into a corner by almost a century of moving all that work onto computers. Why would we want to sever this last thread of human control? What is there to gain from it? I don't think I have to convince anyone how much there is to lose. The situation being created with an overdependence on AI is looking much more like the burning of Alexandria, and less like a utopian dream or ev…

>>Why would we want to sever this last thread of human control? Trust me a fair bit of boomers and the generation before lost jobs to computer automation in the 1990s through the 2000s. And they used pretty much the same justification, every bit of work, take for example designing something like a machine spare that was earlier done through painstaking process of bringing the thing to life from the meticulous work on…

For many of those automations, we're worse off for them.

Like not being able to get some actual human when you call support, and talking to some fucking automatic system.

This includes many of the " 1990s through the 2000s" ones, and earlier ones too. Sometimes what was lost was an added layer of attention and quality that was previously required, but it was sacrificed away for efficiency.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#277

Post by [deleted] »

kamaal wrote: post #268
sublinear wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but we've already painted ourselves into a corner by almost a century of moving all that work onto computers. Why would we want to sever this last thread of human control? What is there to gain from it? I don't think I have to convince anyone how much there is to lose. The situation being created with an overdependence on AI is looking much more like the burning of Alexandria, and less like a utopian dream or ev…

>>Why would we want to sever this last thread of human control? Trust me a fair bit of boomers and the generation before lost jobs to computer automation in the 1990s through the 2000s. And they used pretty much the same justification, every bit of work, take for example designing something like a machine spare that was earlier done through painstaking process of bringing the thing to life from the meticulous work on…

[deleted]

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#278

Post by noufalibrahim »

bluealienpie wrote: post #272
threatripper wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you are right in a way, I think you miss the point. In the past "computer" was a job description and mechanical power came from serfs. They surely developed skills we are lacking today but I'd argue that overall the world is a better place with digital computers and electrical motors. It frees up these people to do something else, something of higher value.

We argued that AI would free us to explore the arts. Instead it first came for written language and images. So what's left when it can write all the programs, drive all the cars, and AI sensors on farms can monitor and distribute nutrients. I remember watching TED Talks about how AI weapons need to be carefully studied, and instead we see them autonomously picking targets. I'm not seeing any higher values, instead I'…

I see that point of view but there's another that I've recently been thinking about.

Many of the fields that were traditionally considered for "smart" people (STEM etc.) are the ones that are being really hammered by AI. Whereas, things which people considered lightweight often involving social relationships and interpersonal skills are still beyond the scope of AI (much of it even theoretically beyond the scope although perhaps robots might have an effect there).

There used to be a sysad T-shirt from the BOFH days "Go away or I'll replace you with a very small shell script" which pushed the idea that whatever could be replaced by a computer was something trivial. Now we find that the things which we thought were only for "smart people" are the very things being replaced by computer programs which is telling. Perhaps what we considered tough and smart really wasn't.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#279

Post by fc417fc802 »

plastic-enjoyer wrote: post #271
fc417fc802 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends entirely on what's meant by "will be fine" and "AI will liberate them". I was assuming you meant something along the lines of gainful employment. If instead you meant performing a meaningful task then I'd counter that most engineers like to build finished products not wallow in minutia. You can still hand roll assembly but I don't think many developers lament the advent of the modern compiler. Instead pe…

Sure, but the compiler didn't promote the assembly programmer, it basically ended assembly programming. So which side of that is the engineer on? You're assuming we're the dev who got the compiler. But if the premise is that AI does the actual problem-solving, then we're the assembly and AI is the compiler. > Engineers like to build finished products, not wallow in minutia This only works if what you loved was having…

My impression is that most developers are motivated to create a finished product for a variety of reasons. If what someone enjoys is the craft purely for its own sake then isn't the resulting situation exactly the same as for artists assuming a hypothetical future where the core activities of both are largely automated? Such people can still engage in the craft purely for their own enjoyment just as anyone who wants to is free to write assembly by hand today.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#280

Post by birdland »

>My job is uniquely creative and human, other jobs can be automated away but mine is just so special.

If you love mathematics so much, and it's not the prestige and accolades that drive you, then what stops you from just solving problems on your free time even if they are already solved by AI?

Why does your field have to remain economically viable for you, why does this not apply to textile manufacturing or something? Someone's positions in society is owed to textile manufacturing too, and it has a culture that some people would lament the loss of and so on.(See guild system, craftsmanship in Europe).

I can't predict whether this will be a good thing in the long run, but this is literally the same complaint that every industry affected by automation ever had, and many who are now complaining would dismiss it if it were about something they personally do not care about or isn't sufficiently "noble" or intellectual.

I know it hurts, but the core complaint is just economic displacement, many have had to deal with that before. Most people who have something they love have to do that on their free time because it's not economically viable as a job, tough luck.

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