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On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem

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Re: On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem

#491
post #53

> We’re sharing a solution to the Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness problem, one of the Millennium Prize Problems. This proof, produced by an internal OpenAI system, shows that the dynamics of the Navier-Stokes equations for fluid motion can develop a singularity in finite time. We’re sharing both a writeup of the proof and a formalization in Lean. WOW?

This is going to be dramatic in so many different ways. - First off, to reiterate, WOW. - Second of all, when does this end? Are we at the dawn of the singularity now? - People are saying OpenAI "stole" this from the work of an OpenAI user. If so, that's pretty fucked - how can we trust them? - Time to think about retiring from any knowledge work or business? This could be winner-take-all where a leading lab can butt…

> - First off, to reiterate, WOW.

> - Second of all, when does this end? Are we at the dawn of the singularity now?

normalcy overhang n. /NOR-muhl-see OH-ver-hang/

The uncanny period during the Singularity when superintelligence is already accomplishing feats that seem like magic, yet everyday life still looks mostly the same.

https://x.com/alexwg/status/2096214373001785794

Re: On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem

#492
post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If humans can figure out to optimize to circumvent bottlenecks, I have no doubt each new bottleneck will also get routed around, just now automated.

Yes. In other words: the singularity. I'll only believe it when I see it though.

I'm coming around to not liking the term singularity, it implies an endpoint or finish line rather than something that just keeps continuing and evolving.

Re: On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem

#493
post #121

Just so everyone knows, although openAI pretends that the model generated solution and wrote the paper by itself ""with very little human input"" as Buckmaster himself mentioned in his statement. In reality they have team of researchers guiding the system, along with, probably training on user data, probably Buckmaster in this case, in order to come up with the proof.

This isn't really true.

Do you have anything to back that up?

Re: On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem

#494
Can't help but shake an unsettling feeling about all this, frankly. I engage in some limited mathematical research and will often use any one of the latest frontier models to check some ideas. Lately, only the OpenAI models have been giving me a temporary message that says something like (paraphrasing from memory), "We're thinking extra hard about your request before we answer. You can choose another model to answer now or click here to learn more about why." When I click to read why it's doing this "extra thinking", the help page says that for cybersecurity and biosecurity-related information, it will review the answer and could refuse.

Now, keep in mind, I'm only asking strictly pure mathematical questions - nothing at all related to cyber or protein creation or biohacking or anything like that... And, like I said, only the OpenAI models are doing this. To be fair, all of the prompts have always eventually returned a satisfactory answer, as far as I can tell, and haven't used a weaker model to answer them. Maybe? I dunno, it has just struck me as odd every time it has given me that message to pure math prompts.

Re: On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem

#495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just pushes knowledge work further up the ladder, toward larger and more complex problems. If there are no knowledge workers, who is going to interpret these results, validate them, decide what matters, and put them into practical use? Rather than eliminating knowledge work, advances like this could create entirely new layers of problems to solve and opportunities to pursue, which will create even more jobs and…

> This just pushes knowledge work further up the ladder, toward larger and more complex problems. You really think it makes sense for you to be higher on the "solving complex problems ladder" than the machines that solved fucking Navier-Stokes? I envy your self-confidence.

It did not solve Navier-Stokes. We still will need to use the bad old numeric methods to simulate the fluid behavior.

But it did find a long-suspected smooth solution with a singularity.

Re: On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem

#496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their own tweets are also pretty eyebrow-raising: > One option we discussed was that Tristan could be the lead author on a rewrite of OpenAI’s Navier-Stokes proof. It is in that context that I said “it would be simpler if Levent was not an Anthropic employee” because I felt it would be inappropriate for an Anthropic employee to author OpenAI’s work. Why would you offer another researcher the lead authorship on your g…

Holy late capitalism. Everything revolves around line-go-up, and sociopaths rule the show. These people cannot even collaborate like civilised scientists on one of the most famous open problems in mathematics? “It would be simpler if Levent was not an Anthropic employee” I cannot believe this shit.

Soon Levent will just be turned into soylent and he will have never been an Anthropic employee. We still need some progress here though.

Re: On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem

#498
post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If humans can figure out to optimize to circumvent bottlenecks, I have no doubt each new bottleneck will also get routed around, just now automated.

We are not in an everything-has-an-API world yet, and it'll for sure take some time to get there.

For sure. Anyone who thinks that we're in the end state of what progress can be made simply lacks imagination. This is all going to keep changing and iterating for the rest of our natural lives. The only constant is change.

Re: On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem

#499
post #235

> On Tuesday, September 1, we heard rumors that two Millennium Prize problems had been resolved What's the other one?

I heard Hodge conjecture? Third-hand rumor though...

I assume the rumor is a counterexample? Where do I go to get wind of these rumors?

Re: On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem

#500

I think this is clear evidence that AI models are now at the far frontier of mathematics innovation and discovery and exceed human limits. This specific problem having had a $1 million bounty on its head and still remaining unsolved for 26 years after the bounty was placed is pretty clear evidence that many of the world's best human mathematicians would have solved this problem if they could have, and none were able…

> will soon far surpass that of humans

To be fair, I think it's still an open question about how far it might surpass human capabilities.

I think it's clear that its speed of development will be significantly faster, but it's technically not proven that the frontier and problems don't themselves become increasingly difficult faster than any acceleration in intelligence past the point of human training, data and existing knowledge.

Should this be the case, we would see a rapid broadening of development, and a slow advance in the frontier in such a way that might surpass the collective capabilities of people, but not by very far.

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