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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

#641

Post by ck2 »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #444
ck2 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"AI" has limits in that it cannot invent knowledge, it can only distill and search for patterns in existing knowledge not sure how many will get this reference but "AI" for science and math is like super-shoes for runners at first we are blown away by the impossible improvements including sub-2-hour realworld marathon and every other PR/CR/WR is dialed down but then the improvements slow and reach a stall point becau…

How do humans "invent knowledge"? Is your argument that the answer to these questions already existed in the training set? Why didn't any human recognize that before?

humans discover a lot of things by trial and error (aka what I meant by "invent knowledge")

basically everything Benjamin Franklin did was trial and error because no-one understood what electricity was in the slightest

almost everything Edison did was trial and error too, he had his lab try thousands of materials for his long lasting lightbulb filament

even the most advanced "AI" today is just machine-learning going through everything already known trying to piece together previously discovered facts, admittedly at levels and detail impossible by human hands

but that means there are limits and it's not really "AI"

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#642

Post by axus »

joshmarlow wrote: post #437
Chance-Device wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the near term handling the transition. Jobs will be lost, careers ended, people won’t be able to reskill quickly enough. At the same time AI is an enormous opportunity to uplift living standards, but nobody has the logistics of this figured out. We need to figure out how to restructure the global economy. How does UBI work internationally, if the AI companies are taking revenue in the US? What’s the tax base for i…

I don't understand why this got downvotes - simply extrapolating current trends leads to the need to answer all of these questions. My own $0.02 on the economics piece - every country should have a sovereign wealth fund. Governments should block market access from automated[0] companies until those companies provide equity contributions to the wealth fund for that country. This aligns regulator and corporate interest…

Nationalize the data centers, reserve enough inference to automate power generation, food production, transportation, and housing.

Is there any government that has gotten socialism correct for its citizens? I'd point to UAE/Qatar if they didn't depend on human servitude and inequality.

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#643

Post by derektank »

righthand wrote: post #597
evenhash wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone works for Evil Corp. I work in the public sector and my work supports public health and safety initiatives. AI has allowed my team to get much more done than we would have otherwise which improves the quality of life of the people in my community. So I would like to counter your cynicism with a “YMMV” depending on who you work for.

Are you just automating lab reporting and results faster? That doesn’t exactly improve the health of others, a faster lab does not cure an ailment or provide a better cure. Like cool my lung xray only took minutes to determine if I have a lesion instead of a week or a few days, but I still have cancer.

Faster scans means more scans. More scans means getting scans earlier and tracking abnormalities on scans over time. This can lead to earlier intervention, which means you get treatment for the cancer when it’s stage 2 instead of stage 3 or 4, which maybe is the difference between living a full life and dying young.

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#644

Post by MostlyStable »

DrBazza wrote: post #96

Replace philosophers for mathematicians and Douglas Adams was spot on again. Whilst current models can't 'intuit' and come up with conjectures, they can certainly disprove some of them very quickly through the kind of grind that humans can't do. I suppose there really are some mathematicians out there today, whose last few years of study, have just been up-ended by this. -- "Yes we are," insisted Majikthise. "We are…

From a mathematician who was intimately familiar with some of these problems [0]

>I don’t understand it yet. Maybe it’ll take me an afternoon to check all the calculations, but what would still be missing is why this was an approach that would’ve made sense in the first place. Is there some broader context or theory within which this would’ve been the obvious thing to do? What other results can be proven using these techniques? What is it telling us about quantum information or operator theory? I have no idea. I spent about an hour this morning asking ChatGPT these questions, but it’s somewhat frustrating because it speaks with a mishmash of physicist, operator algebraist, quantum information theorist-lingo, plus the usual LLM breezy lilt that annoys everybody.

They certainly seem to have "intuited", in a way that is not immediately obvious to experts in the field, the way to solve at least some of these problems. This was not just simply grinding away at a method that humans already knew would work and just hadn't gotten to yet.

[0] https://nitter.poast.org/henryquantum/status/208362369543662...

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#645

Post by kypro »

lkey wrote: post #388
kypro wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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.

> You should put down the AI and do some self-reflection on how you came to hold these views.

I've been in the field for almost 2 decades, and actively thinking about AI risk for over 15 years.

I've always held the controversial opinion that there may come a time where we might unfortunately have to consider using force to protect our civilisation from the threat of ASI, but I've always reframed from openly discussing that because I'm so personally against any use of force and there's always been time for more peaceful options.

Several months ago I changed my tone on AI risk to stop worrying about the optics of what I'm saying because it's too late in the day for me not to speak plainly at this point. Similarly over the last week I've decided I can no longer reframe from advocating for the use of force (if necessary) to stop rouge actors from playing Russian roulette with civilisation.

Please understand I don't want anyone to be harmed. Perhaps you don't agree with my suggestion, but my stance ultimately comes from a position of harm reduction.

> preemptively against a 20% number you just made up?

It's a probability estimate. Happy to expand in detail on why 20% specifically, but first you accept I can't tell you what's going to happen in the future with certainty right? To some degree any prediction you might have about the future will be "made up".

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#646

Post by Chance-Device »

skydhash wrote: post #524
w4yai wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI already have an impact, and yes this is PR hype because this is a product. Yet both can be true at the same time. We're not blindly eating what's OpenAI is serving us as gold truth, we're just admitting it's doing remarkable progress. Remember October 2024 Pelicans [1] ? It's been only less than 2 years. We don't know what will come in the next 2 years. But the progress doesn't seem to stop for now. [1] https://si…

The pelicans are still not ok to this day. People are skeptical of the announcement because the room include several PHDs in math and physics. The prompts are not published so we can see how generic the starting prompt is.

> The pelicans are still not ok to this day.

If I could take one out of context quote from this whole thread as a response to TFA, it would be this one.

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#647

Post by zquzra »

christofosho wrote: post #134

I would love more time and money put into real-world problems by these companies. Climate, food insecurity, pollution, technology for convenience and/or to help people have a higher quality of life. I'm sure they must do some of this type of work, right?

This is something I have been thinking about for quite a while. I readily embrace the advances AI may bring to mathematics and the hard sciences, but those advances were largely expected even predictable.

What I had hoped for was something more ambitious: using AI as an arbiter in economic, political, and social debates, one capable of weighing evidence, exposing trade-offs, and helping us make decisions that produce better outcomes over the medium and long term, even when those decisions conflict with powerful private interests.

I suspect, however, that this is not a particularly urgent goal for the people funding and directing these systems, many of whom live far removed from scarcity and its consequences.

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#648

Post by ck2 »

lackoftactics wrote: post #484
ck2 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"AI" has limits in that it cannot invent knowledge, it can only distill and search for patterns in existing knowledge not sure how many will get this reference but "AI" for science and math is like super-shoes for runners at first we are blown away by the impossible improvements including sub-2-hour realworld marathon and every other PR/CR/WR is dialed down but then the improvements slow and reach a stall point becau…

as much as I love analogy with humans using super-shoes, not everybody can be a world-class expert in their industry. There should be a place at the table for average people to take part; otherwise, it won't be sustainable. As a programmer, I am mostly interested in whether my role is sustainable long-term and whether the models will get better. I don't feel in jeopardy yet, but two more years like this and the calcu…

well not every runner can run world-class sub2 marathon or even vaguely close, not even in super-shoes

but with super-shoes more and more runners are qualifying for boston marathon and even olympic trials marathon where it would have been impossible for them previously

and that's what "AI" currently does, it allows average people to immediately "pick the brain" of every expert in every field, in every scientific paper, without previously reading a single other google result, something that would have been impossible for them previously (super-shoes for the brain? too far?)

but "AI" isn't creating new knowledge, it's just stitching together existing knowledge from patterns that would have taken years by human hand if even possible at all, it's going to "hit the wall" eventually (in its current form)

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#649

Post by kypro »

ghjkghjkghj wrote: post #401
iwontberude wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because its satire, the tell was "not excluding targeted military strikes"

Gonna say the edit they made removes the satire possibility.

Not satire, but as you can see one is engaging in good faith and everyone is either engaging in character attacks or low-effort counters.

It's fine, and I'm very used to this, but if you want to have a dialogue I'd be very happy to. I'm a very reasonable and sane person outside of apparently holding some controversial views on AI risk =)

I'd love to know why you think what I said was insane?

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#650

Post by cmdli »

sothatsit wrote: post #535

People argue whether we are at y-5, y, or y+5, meanwhile we seem to be on a y=2^x exponential that keeps delivering more and more impressive results. The most interesting question to me is what will be consumed by the exponential like math seems to be undergoing, and what won’t. Writing has been quite stubborn, but I’ve noticed Fable to be quite a big step up there. How about politics? Will we develop new ways to let…

This reminds me a lot of the proof by construction for the 4-color theorem. It was only enabled by the advancement of computers and dissatisfied many of the computer scientists and mathematicians since it was a "brute force" approach.

I wonder if AI will end up being similar. Certain theorems get proven by AI but others do not. We haven't reached the limits of this yet and I haven't found a good argument for where those limits will be (I do doubt that there are no limits).

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