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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

#181

Post by WarmWash »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #108

Genuine question: If you still or did think LLMs are just stochastic parrots that just summarize everything and have no form of creativity, what do you think after seeing results like this? I'm very curious how people reconcile their fear/hatred of AI with actual objective reality. This is actually what interests me most about the whole AI thing. How we tell ourselves what we tell ourselves.

No matter what there will always be people who refuse to believe AI is anything beyond a string of if statements.

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

#182

Post by natsucks »

zarzavat wrote: post #147
Quothling wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around here AI isn't really more of a threat to juniors than it is to seniors. It's a threat to the people who have been taught "recipies" rather than applied computer science. You can have excellent seniors who can do TDD, DRY, SOLID and so on, who also happen to have no idea what a L1 cache miss is. The current AI models know all of those things, but they struggle applying them correctly without someone piloting th…

AI is a threat to everyone. People who claim that AI will never be able to do X have consistently been proven wrong. The only people who are safe are those whose jobs depend in some way on their humanity. e.g. yoga teachers, bouncers, etc

i'd take a yoga class from a bot

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

#184

Post by threethirtytwo »

pessimizer wrote: post #126
threethirtytwo wrote: post #108

Genuine question: If you still or did think LLMs are just stochastic parrots that just summarize everything and have no form of creativity, what do you think after seeing results like this? I'm very curious how people reconcile their fear/hatred of AI with actual objective reality. This is actually what interests me most about the whole AI thing. How we tell ourselves what we tell ourselves.

I'm very curious why people conflate thinking LLMs are stochastic parrots with "fear/hatred" of AI. It seems like you're arguing with people who agree that it works and it helps, but you're trying to insist that this implies that they should kneel down and pray to it. Is "stochastic parrot" too disrespectful for you? Do you think it is a slur? edit: and this is a genuine question, also. How do you do stochastic parro…

I think it's quite clear the proof here shows that it is not a parrot. It objectively isn't.... that's the only rational conclusion. Yet many people claim that it is, so the main conclusion is fear/hatred is causing people to rationalize their logic to fit the narrative they prefer.

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

#185

Post by nilamo »

WarmWash wrote: post #170
piloto_ciego wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is utopian friend! Literally anything you wanted to make is no plausible to make if not now then in the next couple years. The thing you’re worried about is capitalism and the connection with working to having the right to keep living. If you can throw off that mental shackle you can start to see how this can be amazing, but you have to drop the idea that everyone has to work at a job for someone else to provide…

You ever play a video game with god mode cheats enabled, so you can unlock all the unlocks, get all the best gear, and be an unstoppable force with unlimited money? Yeah, it's fun for 30 minutes.

On the other hand, exploring any of your interests without needing to calculate how it can cover rent means you have more time and opportunities to actually do things you're interested in.

Working all day, then not wanting to do much else after because you're tired, is also fun for all of 30 minutes.

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

#186

Post by semiquaver »

xeromal wrote: post #165
_alternator_ wrote: post #76

I know a bit about this field. This conjecture reads as somewhat more niche than the cyclic double cover conjecture recently proved by OpenAI, but nevertheless represents a real contribution. You want to know how long it takes to solve an optimization problem, in this case over convex, lipschitz functions. (The restriction to a spherical domain is not really a restriction, you can just change variables for any bounde…

Sometimes I read a comment on HN that is so advanced that it's just as readable to me as Greek. Love reading it just to see someone work though!

Thanks for posting this comment, it makes me proud of myself to be able to partially comprehend the comment :)

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

#187

Post by onraglanroad »

natsucks wrote: post #182
zarzavat wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is a threat to everyone. People who claim that AI will never be able to do X have consistently been proven wrong. The only people who are safe are those whose jobs depend in some way on their humanity. e.g. yoga teachers, bouncers, etc

i'd take a yoga class from a bot

I'm now imagining Bender's Yoga class. I suspect it would hurt.

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

#188

Post by threethirtytwo »

slashdave wrote: post #146
threethirtytwo wrote: post #108

Genuine question: If you still or did think LLMs are just stochastic parrots that just summarize everything and have no form of creativity, what do you think after seeing results like this? I'm very curious how people reconcile their fear/hatred of AI with actual objective reality. This is actually what interests me most about the whole AI thing. How we tell ourselves what we tell ourselves.

Must be nice knowing you have a clear understanding of "objective reality" that others don't.

Is it not objective reality that the feat performed by the LLM here is much more then parroting or summarizing something?

It's doing math proofs. At this point, it's fully clear that objective reality is that the LLM is not parroting anything here.

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

#189

Post by paytonjjones »

piloto_ciego wrote: post #159
sashank_1509 wrote: post #116

This is all a depressing and bleak future that I don’t look forward to. One solution is to ban LLM’s, to artificially create a demand for human thought, that just feels like living in an artificially constructed zoo. Another solution is humans don’t do anything that AI can do better , / doesn’t need the human touch. So I suppose we will all become artists, sportsmen or politicians, the only jobs that will remain exce…

This is utopian friend! Literally anything you wanted to make is no plausible to make if not now then in the next couple years. The thing you’re worried about is capitalism and the connection with working to having the right to keep living. If you can throw off that mental shackle you can start to see how this can be amazing, but you have to drop the idea that everyone has to work at a job for someone else to provide…

People like being needed and important to other people. That isn't some artifact of capitalism; it exists across all times and cultures.

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

#190

Post by threethirtytwo »

throwaway1707 wrote: post #132
threethirtytwo wrote: post #108

Genuine question: If you still or did think LLMs are just stochastic parrots that just summarize everything and have no form of creativity, what do you think after seeing results like this? I'm very curious how people reconcile their fear/hatred of AI with actual objective reality. This is actually what interests me most about the whole AI thing. How we tell ourselves what we tell ourselves.

I had to create an account to respond to this because I am quite convinced these math problems they are "solving" are pure marketing. Why is it only GPT doing this, why not Claude? Why does Terrance Tao do marketing for OpenAI? I suspect OpenAI has hired math researchers to solve obscure problems and put them in their training set, purely for marketing reasons. There was a good comment on the Pelican bicycle svg yest…

Terrence Tao getting paid by openAI is, to you, the most probable conclusion... much more so then the LLM actually being able to come up with math proofs?
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