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GPT-5.6 used a prompt to close a 30-year gap in convex optimization

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Re: GPT-5.6 used a prompt to close a 30-year gap in convex optimization

#41

Post by throwup238 »

semiquaver wrote: post #15
jdw64 wrote: post #7

What I'm feeling is that there's a need to study how to use AI well. I've seen professors using AI, and it was amazing. In that sense, I think AI prompt input will become stratified. In the past, implementation skills were very important, but these days, concepts feel more important this is one of those things. It's not that AI brings equality, but rather that the output varies depending on how much background knowle…

You’re at least 18 months out of date claiming that prompting will be the new hot skill. Turns out LLMs are also good at prompting other LLMs.

Calling it prompt engineer is doing it a disservice. With agents we’re well into process engineering, which is a ton more interesting.

The obvious baby’s first process is “plan -> execute” but as we learn about the strengths and weaknesses of LLMs you have to start unpacking that process into planning, prototyping, testing, validation, reviews, and tons of research. If you treat it like an extension of your brain that can automate some thought processes, it becomes a lot more powerful.

Re: GPT-5.6 used a prompt to close a 30-year gap in convex optimization

#42

Post by [deleted] »

skeke wrote: post #37
timcobb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't stop wondering myself.... I'm writing some software with AI and wondering, why am I doing this? Will anyone need this? Will anyone have money to buy this? Best I've come up with is we'll need to be adopted by technofeudlaist overlords to be our patrons like in the roman days

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: GPT-5.6 used a prompt to close a 30-year gap in convex optimization

#44

Post by jdw64 »

parasti wrote: post #40
jdw64 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So these days I've been writing down my thoughts on my personal homepage. Things I've learned, my background knowledge, and so on. I've been realizing that there are more books tied to my background knowledge than I expected, but I'm not sure what will happen as AI advances further. These days, I'm living for the fun of building my own personal wiki on my homepage

Why write it down? LLM crawlers will ingest it in a second.

Sharing knowledge is good, but just because an LLM crawls it doesn't mean it fits my mental model. The act of writing is fundamentally about drawing the shape of my own mental model.

Re: GPT-5.6 used a prompt to close a 30-year gap in convex optimization

#45

Post by qarl2 »

peddling-brink wrote: post #13
WA wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If knowledge is a Swiss cheese, LLMs can help fill the holes, but not make the cheese bigger.

Today maybe. I disagree in the long term. While they’ll never have the same subjective experience as humans, what stops an LLM from applying similar lines of thought* in a manner that results in a novel conjecture? They are prediction machines, and so are we in a way. We can give them nearly limitless resources to scale their predictive capabilities. We have billions of years of training baked in. They distill direct…

> While they’ll never have the same subjective experience as humans

You state this as a fact - are you aware the question is unresolved?

EDIT: I'd love to know why you're downvoting me for stating a known fact.

Re: GPT-5.6 used a prompt to close a 30-year gap in convex optimization

#46

Post by sscaryterry »

fidotron wrote: post #36
skeke wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh brother AI hasn’t even taken the class of jobs associated with customer service lmao

Do we employ mathematicians in customer service roles?

Thats a silly and obtuse comment.

Re: GPT-5.6 used a prompt to close a 30-year gap in convex optimization

#48

Post by skybrian »

rakel_rakel wrote: post #29

> I don't think researchers in math/TCS will be made obsolete, but I think it will instead no longer make sense to work on any low-hanging, or even medium-hanging (you know what I mean) fruit. We'll be needed for problems where actual novel approaches are needed. I wonder how this compares to what we see happening with "juniors" in software development? In math research, do you also get the training for the professio…

This apparently required a 10-page prompt. It seems like someone needs to know enough to write it?

Re: GPT-5.6 used a prompt to close a 30-year gap in convex optimization

#49

Post by jdw64 »

semiquaver wrote: post #15
jdw64 wrote: post #7

What I'm feeling is that there's a need to study how to use AI well. I've seen professors using AI, and it was amazing. In that sense, I think AI prompt input will become stratified. In the past, implementation skills were very important, but these days, concepts feel more important this is one of those things. It's not that AI brings equality, but rather that the output varies depending on how much background knowle…

You’re at least 18 months out of date claiming that prompting will be the new hot skill. Turns out LLMs are also good at prompting other LLMs.

I find it strange that people sometimes think of knowledge as 'public property for everyone.' The essence may be one, but the mental model of knowledge is individual. For an LLM's knowledge to become mine, I need to digest it to some extent.

And programming, as the programmer who created Eliza once said, is the act of becoming a legislator of your own universe. So even if there are black boxes, if you want to build a program that fits your own worldview, studying is essential.

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