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Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

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Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#451

Post by lkey »

deaton wrote: post #402
lkey wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your 'serious' proposal is unlimited global military bombing campaign on civilian infrastructure by the United States (which is currently losing a war using the same strategy) to 'solve safety' preemptively against a 20% number you just made up? And you accuse the 'other side' of 'suicidal apathy'?? You should put down the AI and do some self-reflection on how you came to hold these views.

If the thesis that "If anybody builds it, everyone dies" is true, or has any chance of becoming true, then it is the logical thing to do. As Geoffrey Hinton said, "If you want to know what it's like not to be the apex intelligence, ask a chicken."

It is not 'logical' to imagine a hypothetical doomsday scenario that justifies a preemptive nuclear war. (which is what the grandparent commenter's bio contemplates, 'nuke the datacenters' is their central credo).

Does it bother you that the people who are publicly cocksure that P(doom) is moments away are the same people that have profited most handsomely from that pronouncement?

That the 'humanists' that want to do 'altruism' for 'potential future humans' and are the same people that commit fraud and theft at a civilizational scale, then sell this 'intelligence' to any child-incinerating militaries with spare cash?

It's not wrong to want to do good, but if a system that is branded 'do (the most) good' commits great evils, you are morally and intellectually obligated to step back and reconsider how you are spending your time.

Also, I asked a chicken and a feral rock dove what it's like to be not be 'apex' and they burbled at me and kept eating millet and sunflower seeds.

Would you like me to follow up with them? I'm not sure what point you expected them to make.

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#452

Post by scarmig »

overgard wrote: post #441

Gary Marcus' has a good take on this: https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/openais-amazing-but-vastly... https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/two-critical-updates-re-as... Not that there isn't something interesting in here, but lets be clear that we don't have enough information to evaluate this properly. And as always with these labs, BS takes a lot more energy to refute than it does to spread.

It's worth reading Marcus' first line, for the naysayers and flaggers on this post:

> Astra, a new model that OpenAI is testing internally, is amazing. No denying that.

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#453

Post by overgard »

HardCodedBias wrote: post #445
overgard wrote: post #441

Gary Marcus' has a good take on this: https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/openais-amazing-but-vastly... https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/two-critical-updates-re-as... Not that there isn't something interesting in here, but lets be clear that we don't have enough information to evaluate this properly. And as always with these labs, BS takes a lot more energy to refute than it does to spread.

"Gary Marcus' has a good take " I think that is an oxymoron.

It can be annoying when someone you disagree with is frequently right!

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#454

Post by energy123 »

neta1337 wrote: post #447
HardCodedBias wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Gary Marcus' has a good take " I think that is an oxymoron.

How so? His predictions were accurate so far

No they were not. These were his 5 predictions in 2022:

""" 1. By 2029, AI will still be unable to watch a movie and accurately explain the characters, events, conflicts, and motivations.

2. By 2029, AI will still be unable to read a novel and reliably answer questions about its plot, characters, conflicts, and motivations beyond what is stated literally.

3. By 2029, AI will still be unable to work as a competent cook in an unfamiliar kitchen.

4. By 2029, AI will still be unable to reliably create more than 10,000 lines of bug-free code from natural-language instructions or interaction with a nontechnical user, excluding simple assembly of existing libraries.

5. By 2029, AI will still be unable to convert arbitrary mathematical proofs written in natural language into symbolic form suitable for formal verification. """

There's still 3 years to go and he's already wrong on 4 out of 5.

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#455

Post by dash2 »

muchmirulys wrote: post #367

problem number 1 and 9 are surprisingly very intuitive check here : 1. high dimensional sphere packing https://muchmirul.github.io/conjectures/sphere-packing/ 2. multicolor ramsey number https://muchmirul.github.io/conjectures/multicolor-ramsey

The first link is very sloppy and doesn't actually explain why the "certificate" proves anything about the sphere packing. Or if it did, I couldn't understand it.

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#456

Post by aaroninsf »

overgard wrote: post #441

Gary Marcus' has a good take on this: https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/openais-amazing-but-vastly... https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/two-critical-updates-re-as... Not that there isn't something interesting in here, but lets be clear that we don't have enough information to evaluate this properly. And as always with these labs, BS takes a lot more energy to refute than it does to spread.

I find Marcus on this, something approaching sophistry and rhetorical showmanship in service of maintaining an ideological position, for reasons unrelated to the nominal intellectual clarity.

To sharpen that, I think he's (obviously) interested in maintaining his own brand as "thought leader" and this necessitates de rigeur defense of particular postures.

Sometimes this is easy because the facts warrant it; other times, a bit of rhetorical license is required to preserve nominal coherence and (at least, for the moment) hold certain lines.

This is one of the latter cases, and it's not subtle.

One of the celebrated properties of many intellectual advances or inventions in whatever domain is precisely that it appears obvious in hindsight. It is quite cynical to leverage consensus distrust of large AI players, warranted but also a popular social construction, to insinuate that these are not "real" advances or "real" hard problems, on the grounds they were in some sense cherry-picked.

Identifying the problems amenable to strategies on the table and intuitions (sic) about where bridges might be, is exactly the discerning work that is the core driver of almost all prior progress, but for celebrated accidents and flashes of insight. Anyone working in any challenging discipline knows that those are celebrated and told around campfires precisely because meaningful durable results arising like that is so uncommon.

These two articles make me think of nothing so much as my own durable reaction to the creeping goalposts of AI critics generally: that they often seem to me not unlike a water color cohort scoffing and jeering at the horse, because it got a D on its tensor calculus exam.

Marcus should be on guard against his own cynicism and take care that his assumptions do not prevent clear sight.

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#457

Post by overgard »

Chance-Device wrote: post #105

Pretty cool. The impact of AI is getting undeniable, there aren’t many positions left to move the goalposts to at this stage, next they’ll have to be outside the stadium entirely. The sooner people can be broken out of their denial about all this the better, and we can start actually taking it seriously.

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/openais-amazing-but-vastly...

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/two-critical-updates-re-as...

As always, PR hype. Goalposts have not moved.

Guys, please use critical thinking. The haters don't hate by default, we hate because we're gaslit about this stuff every day and it's annoying. Extraordinary claims require proof, and they're not giving us information that would be essential to knowing if this is actually significant or not.

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#458

Post by an0malous »

energy123 wrote: post #454
neta1337 wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? His predictions were accurate so far

No they were not. These were his 5 predictions in 2022: """ 1. By 2029, AI will still be unable to watch a movie and accurately explain the characters, events, conflicts, and motivations. 2. By 2029, AI will still be unable to read a novel and reliably answer questions about its plot, characters, conflicts, and motivations beyond what is stated literally. 3. By 2029, AI will still be unable to work as a competent coo…

> There's still 3 years to go and he's already wrong on 4 out of 5.

Have these been tested or are you just guessing?

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#459

Post by hansmayer »

Chance-Device wrote: post #105

Pretty cool. The impact of AI is getting undeniable, there aren’t many positions left to move the goalposts to at this stage, next they’ll have to be outside the stadium entirely. The sooner people can be broken out of their denial about all this the better, and we can start actually taking it seriously.

[dead]

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#460

Post by waffletower »

WarmWash wrote: post #430
c7b wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what does taking it seriously entail?

The human zoo where the top ~250,000k humans live in a "human utopia" and the AI provides while mostly focusing on whatever it decides it's own goals are. Humanity survives (but we reading this probably don't), the AI treats the living humans like the Emperor's favorite pets (probably a pretty good life), and then the AI does whatever else it deems important.

[dead]
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