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Some thoughts about Anthropic's new cryptanalysis results

blog.cryptographyengineering.com

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Re: Some thoughts about Anthropic's new cryptanalysis results

#11

Post by [deleted] »

free_bip wrote: post #9
simonw wrote: post #4

> both outputs of Claude Mythos, their (still) unreleased advanced model That sentence gives the impression that Mythos might be released in the future. That's clearly not going to happen - it's already "released" in as much as selected, trusted partners can access it, and the rest of us get it in the form of Fable - which is Mythos but with filters that downgrade you if you try to use it for anything even remotely r…

Genuine question here, why would you ask Fable to explain the difference between tusks and teeth? That's a task that can probably be handled by Haiku.

[deleted]

Re: Some thoughts about Anthropic's new cryptanalysis results

#12

Post by dboreham »

simonw wrote: post #6

This is good: > If you’re under the impression that these models are “glorified autocomplete” or that progress is slowing down, I need to urge you: stop thinking that . The models are very intelligent and capable, they are getting better at a fast clip. I can cite measurable and impressive progress over just the past five months on specific types of problem I’ve asked them to look at. [...] > On the other hand : if y…

I'm also getting irritated with the “glorified autocomplete” comments. Since nobody can post such comments and also use the tools I'm using, I'm wondering if the phenomenon is due to people only having experience with the free version of whatever it is they're trying to use?

Re: Some thoughts about Anthropic's new cryptanalysis results

#13

Post by adamzenith »

john_strinlai wrote: post #3

> They [anthropic] appear to have just told it to get some results and then strapped its nose to the grindstone until it found some. it is fun how well this works. i cant find the link immediately (will look and edit with it), but somewhere in the " hello there the jacobian conjecture is false thanx " thread, someone brought up a different conjecture breakthrough where the prompts were basically just repeated "no, ke…

In response to your edit, you should check out Terry tao's chat gpt logs about the recent Jacobian result. The models are smart enough to brute force some things, but can cut to the meat much faster with good prompting

Re: Some thoughts about Anthropic's new cryptanalysis results

#14

Post by dgellow »

dboreham wrote: post #12
simonw wrote: post #6

This is good: > If you’re under the impression that these models are “glorified autocomplete” or that progress is slowing down, I need to urge you: stop thinking that . The models are very intelligent and capable, they are getting better at a fast clip. I can cite measurable and impressive progress over just the past five months on specific types of problem I’ve asked them to look at. [...] > On the other hand : if y…

I'm also getting irritated with the “glorified autocomplete” comments. Since nobody can post such comments and also use the tools I'm using, I'm wondering if the phenomenon is due to people only having experience with the free version of whatever it is they're trying to use?

The “glorified autocomplete” framing isn’t to take literally. It’s a way to remove the mystic and whole anthropomorphization of AI. It’s saying they aren’t sentient or entities we are interacting with, even if that’s how the output presents itself. Instead they are “just” stochastic models

Re: Some thoughts about Anthropic's new cryptanalysis results

#15

Post by john_strinlai »

adamzenith wrote: post #13
john_strinlai wrote: post #3

> They [anthropic] appear to have just told it to get some results and then strapped its nose to the grindstone until it found some. it is fun how well this works. i cant find the link immediately (will look and edit with it), but somewhere in the " hello there the jacobian conjecture is false thanx " thread, someone brought up a different conjecture breakthrough where the prompts were basically just repeated "no, ke…

In response to your edit, you should check out Terry tao's chat gpt logs about the recent Jacobian result. The models are smart enough to brute force some things, but can cut to the meat much faster with good prompting

i read his, too. his replies are indeed more directed, but also quite short, unstructured, and natural sounding. if i recall, maybe 1 or 2 of his prompts exceeded 50(ish) words.

in my head, the comparison is the multi-paragraph prompts (borderline essays) i would read in various communities on reddit and similar forums, that people (often self-proclaimed "prompt engineers") said were "required" to get good output. or some of the prompts ive read in various logs that are like a thousand words of setup.

even looking back at the first prompts i was sending when i started to use chatgpt were (in hindsight) crazy long and full of unnecessary guidance/caveats/"ignore xyz"/etc.

Re: Some thoughts about Anthropic's new cryptanalysis results

#16

Post by simonw »

dgellow wrote: post #14
dboreham wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also getting irritated with the “glorified autocomplete” comments. Since nobody can post such comments and also use the tools I'm using, I'm wondering if the phenomenon is due to people only having experience with the free version of whatever it is they're trying to use?

The “glorified autocomplete” framing isn’t to take literally. It’s a way to remove the mystic and whole anthropomorphization of AI. It’s saying they aren’t sentient or entities we are interacting with, even if that’s how the output presents itself. Instead they are “just” stochastic models

Some people use it to demystify, but a whole lot of people seem to be using it to dismiss the technology entirely.

Personally I like to remind people that these things are next-token predictors, but then emphasize how truly astonishing the results we can get out of sufficiently advanced next-token predictors are.

Re: Some thoughts about Anthropic's new cryptanalysis results

#18

Post by ameliaquining »

simonw wrote: post #16
dgellow wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “glorified autocomplete” framing isn’t to take literally. It’s a way to remove the mystic and whole anthropomorphization of AI. It’s saying they aren’t sentient or entities we are interacting with, even if that’s how the output presents itself. Instead they are “just” stochastic models

Some people use it to demystify, but a whole lot of people seem to be using it to dismiss the technology entirely. Personally I like to remind people that these things are next-token predictors, but then emphasize how truly astonishing the results we can get out of sufficiently advanced next-token predictors are.

I'm curious, what are you hoping to convey by reminding people that LLMs are next-token predictors? They are, of course, but most people without an AI background won't fully understand what that means, so I assume you're using it at least partly as a proxy for something else.

Re: Some thoughts about Anthropic's new cryptanalysis results

#19

Post by dist-epoch »

john_strinlai wrote: post #3

> They [anthropic] appear to have just told it to get some results and then strapped its nose to the grindstone until it found some. it is fun how well this works. i cant find the link immediately (will look and edit with it), but somewhere in the " hello there the jacobian conjecture is false thanx " thread, someone brought up a different conjecture breakthrough where the prompts were basically just repeated "no, ke…

That second person stated that for many years they tried that particular graph problem on various AI models, starting with o1 and o3.

Its quite likely they now found the counterexample with a more serious prompt, and then for virality re-tried a few times with meme-prompts like "you should do a breakthrough", knowing that the model is capable of solving this particular one. Worst case the meme-prompts don't work and they share the real one they initially used.

Re: Some thoughts about Anthropic's new cryptanalysis results

#20

Post by Ar-Curunir »

throawayonthe wrote: post #5

> I asked Claude for its thoughts, and it doesn’t mince words: “what makes this genuinely interesting — and, frankly, a little embarrassing for the field — is that none of the ingredients are exotic.” The TL;DR is that someone just did a much more thorough job applying all of our known tools. In short: the sort of things that attack AIs are wonderful at. did i just read two summaries/TLDRs (in a row) of the already-t…

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