I recently read Fermat’s enigma and I really loved it and am amazed at how far humans can go. If AI does everything going forward it will definitely be bitter sweet taking away from the human possibility of it imo
Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science
951–960 of 1001 posts
Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science
#952Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science
#953Earlier quoted context omitted.
Proof? In my experience modern models are better at all tasks than models from two years ago, especially complex multi-step tasks.
For customer support I don't think models have gotten better since gpt-4.1. The class of small models, with limited to no reasoning, that need to handle a complex issue with a touch of empathy, has not improved much. I think most are actually worth, as agentic harnesses seem to optimize for solving poorly described problems rather than following complex procedures as written. In other words, instruction following max…
>The class of small models, with limited to no reasoning
What? GPT-4.1 was not a small model! And why wouldn't you use reasoning?
You're of course going to see poor results when you restrict yourself to small non-reasoning models, but why would you?
Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science
#954Earlier quoted context omitted.
In what sense?
For example, pi can be computed to arbitrarily many digits, but could only even in principle be accurately represented with physical objects to a precision that many humans could memorize easily. This is thanks to physical constraints such as "diameter of the observable universe" and "Planck length", at a minimum.
Even if pi is an approximation, it is still representable mathematically. Floating-point arithmetic is an algebra (in this case, a magma [1]), which can be studied mathematically.
Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science
#955Gary 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 tim…
That's a lot of ad hominem with no actual explanation attached.
I don't agree with this idea of "creeping goalposts". Here's the pattern I see:
1. Labs make a press release, cherry picking results and using very careful wording to inflate the work
2. Boosters read the headlines uncritically, and uncritically promote the work for free (I hope.. I'm sure a couple are sponsored) and view it as "proof" and demand that the skeptics stop being skeptical.
3. As the hype dies, the smart skeptics point out all the holes, but by that point everyone has moved on. It takes more work to refute misinformation than it does to spread it.
The other thing: Why do boosters care about skeptics being skeptics? Like literally, if this thing is so fucking magical, why do you care if people like me take all these press releases with a large rock of salt? If I'm a dinosaur so be it, the skeptics are harmless, but the people propping up a bubble that's going to have terrifying repercussions on everyone while not holding the media's feet to the fire to challenge these people are going to look like what they are: sycophants.
Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science
#956Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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…
Nobody is saying it doesn't have an impact. What we're saying is the near-religious fervor isn't warranted. AI boosters always speak in the future tense, which is extremely telling because we have right now is basically "ok" not earth shattering.
Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science
#957Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Gary doesn't argue it's hype though. He argues 2 things: other people are getting carried away with the result, and we don't know enough about how it was reached to know where it falls on the impressive scale. He literally says it's an impressive feat in the second article.
> other people are getting carried away with the result
That is the intended purpose of hype.
He's polite, but he's basically saying there's potentially a lot of smoke and mirrors. I agree.
Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science
#958Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Gary Marcus has been moving the goalposts since day 1. The guy is a psychologist. Why would anyone care what a psychologist has to say about AI? He's likely made good money from constantly moving the goalposts and being a denier, due to the publicity he gets.
Mate, if you don't like Gary Marcus that's your call, but you're completely just lying when you talk about his qualifications. He is not "just" a psychologist, he's done a lot of AI research and even started AI companies that were acquired. This is absolutely a person with the credentials to speak on this subject, and honestly all his takes I've read have probably been TOO nice to AI companies.
Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science
#959Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gary Marcus has been moving the goalposts since day 1. The guy is a psychologist. Why would anyone care what a psychologist has to say about AI? He's likely made good money from constantly moving the goalposts and being a denier, due to the publicity he gets.
Because he's not talking about AI, he's talking about people's psychological reactions to AI
That's just not true, at all.
Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science
#960Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gary Marcus has been moving the goalposts since day 1. The guy is a psychologist. Why would anyone care what a psychologist has to say about AI? He's likely made good money from constantly moving the goalposts and being a denier, due to the publicity he gets.
He's simply a good phone number to have for journalists under time pressure who need to add the contrarian voice to their upcoming story. He delivers it reliably, then never reflects on how he was wrong in the past, just blasts forward as if nothing happened and just makes the next bonkers claims to the journalists who are very thankful for the prompt delivery of how AI is a nothingburger, and fake and won't ever do…
And yet Sora folded because it's way too expensive to run a service like that.
A lot of his predictions have held up very well.