Is there anyone on the planet who doesn’t think ”thinking” also includes memory?
AI isn’t outthinking mathematicians, it’s out-remembering them
221–230 of 545 posts
Re: AI isn’t outthinking mathematicians, it’s out-remembering them
#222I suspect that a lot about what we call being very intelligent is ultimately out-remembering people around us. I think of all the times in my software career when I did something that others considered very high performance, it either came down to either having more energy than others at tackling a problem they thought was more trouble than it was worth, or just bringing back random knowledge from previous jobs or se…
People have told me I was smart since I was a kid, but I can't remember for shit. I had a thought when I was fairly young that the only reason I was (maybe, sometimes) outperforming others intellectually is that I was habitually compensating for my poor memory by working things out on the fly, while others could rely more on rote memorization. Anyway, takes all kinds I guess!
Memory isn’t only being able to recall things on demand.
Re: AI isn’t outthinking mathematicians, it’s out-remembering them
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
What research works that way?
large parts of Computer science, mathematics, theoretical physics, economics, some humanities research and I'm probably missing a ton.
So applied math, math, applied math, applied math, and maybe some others.
That makes sense, although I'd argue that at least in the realm of HEP theoretical physics has extraordinarily expensive kit compared to what scientists make. See: The LHC.
Re: AI isn’t outthinking mathematicians, it’s out-remembering them
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
large parts of Computer science, mathematics, theoretical physics, economics, some humanities research and I'm probably missing a ton.
So applied math, math, applied math, applied math, and maybe some others. That makes sense, although I'd argue that at least in the realm of HEP theoretical physics has extraordinarily expensive kit compared to what scientists make. See: The LHC.
Reducing all these fields to mathematics is incredibly reductive. I don't think it's in good faith.
Re: AI isn’t outthinking mathematicians, it’s out-remembering them
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If there exists a text which only one person can understand, that person can communicate their understanding to others, even if that doesn't help them with the original text. If there exists a text which only an AI can understand, that AI can communicate their key conclusions to others, even if that doesn't help them with the original text. The only difference here is the amount of meat involved. Perhaps tossing a…
If an AI can communicate its findings to us in a way that we can understand it, then its findings are by definition intelligible to humans. Your claim was about texts for which this is not possible.
So, you're willing to claim that a conclusion that you don't understand the reasoning for is equivalent to comprehension?
Because, again, I can point to hundreds of examples of texts where nobody but the author understands it, and they're only giving summarized "commandments" that you should follow if you want good results.
If I told you "don't use spin locks, call futex instead", do you think have gained an understanding of the Linux scheduler?
Re: AI isn’t outthinking mathematicians, it’s out-remembering them
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are plenty of artifacts that, if not impossible for humans to understand, then at least no human has ever completely understood. To start with, the universe as a whole. Despite that, we are able to choose legible pieces of it to model and perform useful actions from. This will shift your argument--that doesn't count! etc., to the point where it's by construction unsatisfiable and vacuous. And it doesn't matter:…
One person need not completely understand something for it to have value; it's sufficient for there to exist a shared understanding. an LLM might e.g. break some cryptographic algorithm in a way utterly unintelligible to humans, but the fact that it works would be sufficient on its own to make all of us choose to abandon that algorithm and choose different ones. No, that is the entire point. If it is an algorithm whi…
So, what you're asking for is an example of someone extracting value out of something that is fundamentally irreducible random noise?
Re: AI isn’t outthinking mathematicians, it’s out-remembering them
#227I suspect that a lot about what we call being very intelligent is ultimately out-remembering people around us. I think of all the times in my software career when I did something that others considered very high performance, it either came down to either having more energy than others at tackling a problem they thought was more trouble than it was worth, or just bringing back random knowledge from previous jobs or se…
Not only I agree with you that I don't think I've had an original idea, even when I try to do artistic stuff it seems like the things most praised were the ones where I was trying to do something else and the good part came from failing to do the thing I was trying to do.
Re: AI isn’t outthinking mathematicians, it’s out-remembering them
#228[flagged]
Re: AI isn’t outthinking mathematicians, it’s out-remembering them
#229I suspect that a lot about what we call being very intelligent is ultimately out-remembering people around us. I think of all the times in my software career when I did something that others considered very high performance, it either came down to either having more energy than others at tackling a problem they thought was more trouble than it was worth, or just bringing back random knowledge from previous jobs or se…
People have told me I was smart since I was a kid, but I can't remember for shit. I had a thought when I was fairly young that the only reason I was (maybe, sometimes) outperforming others intellectually is that I was habitually compensating for my poor memory by working things out on the fly, while others could rely more on rote memorization. Anyway, takes all kinds I guess!
I can relate to this, but always explained it away in the opposite direction: I never trained my memory very much because I was able to work things out on the fly. Who knows, maybe there isn't much of a link between the two at all.
Re: AI isn’t outthinking mathematicians, it’s out-remembering them
#230I suspect that a lot about what we call being very intelligent is ultimately out-remembering people around us. I think of all the times in my software career when I did something that others considered very high performance, it either came down to either having more energy than others at tackling a problem they thought was more trouble than it was worth, or just bringing back random knowledge from previous jobs or se…
I like to use the analogy that the human brain (when it comes to intelligence) is like a computer. We have storage, which is just long-term memory. We have RAM, which is your ability to keep track of a mental model of something you’re actively working on, and then there’s the CPU, which is the ability to make logical leaps and connections on that mental model (or maybe storage).
I’ve met different people throughout my career whose intelligence came in 1 specific area. For instance, my friend is extremely good at trivia, he clearly has a lot of storage and can access it easily. I think I’ve only met one person who was excellent in all three areas of intelligence.
Obviously this is a simplification, but it’s how I like to illustrate my ideas on intelligence at parties and first dates.