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Tao: Open math problems being non-renewably mined by AI

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Re: Tao: Open math problems being non-renewably mined by AI

#31

Post by connorboyle »

vessenes wrote: post #3

That’s not untrue. But it’s also a misstatement of mathematical history. Many leading mathematicians historically have been highly competitive — Gauss comes to mind. Woe betide the lesser intellect that sent Gauss some ideas. The Newton Leibniz controversy was very serious business at the time in the UK and the continent. It was considered at the least a sin to reveal that sqrt(2) was irrational to those outside Pyth…

My computer contains the prime factorization of probably several dozen (if not more) large integers, and I refuse to share them with anyone!

(Because they are my private RSA keys)

Re: Tao: Open math problems being non-renewably mined by AI

#32

Post by _alternator_ »

This series of posts by Terry Tao is a direct response to the Navier-Stokes results (multiple results!) from the last 24 hours. The question is what is left after the levelling of mathematics, in all its senses, occurs? How can you protect a field that's under this much pressure in the next 6 months?

> [I]t is now the identification of a promising problem which is the scarce and precious resource. We have now seen that even the rumor of someone working on a problem can trigger a massive amount of AI-powered effort to flatten it before the original research project has time to reach its full potential.

Re: Tao: Open math problems being non-renewably mined by AI

#33

Post by crisnoble »

GolfPopper wrote: post #23
ozgung wrote: post #18

No matter what happened this must be a wake up call for all of us. We’re basically sharing everything we have with these companies/AI systems. This is wildly different than a human wiretapping our private messages. Because it is systematic and automated in an astronomical scale. There is no real privacy in this new world. Law? I think “National Security” is a good enough excuse to screen anything constantly, includin…

> We’re basically sharing everything we have with these companies/AI systems. My sense of the word 'share' is that it traditionally involves agency by all parties involved. There are a lot of words in English for describing taking things without permission and profiting thereby - words like piracy, banditry, and larceny.

Next you will try to tell me that these companies built upon nothing but piracy, banditry and larceny would continue to commit piracy, banditry or larceny.

Re: Tao: Open math problems being non-renewably mined by AI

#35

Post by calf »

johnsmith1840 wrote: post #28

I mean, hasn't it always been this way? If something valuable is within reach and you disclose it, someone else might reach for it? Just because the length of the arm is longer with an AI org doesn't mean it's somehow fundamentally a different system. The future is that if you don't use AI your work is a lot easer to reach against someone else who has it. That dude hand writing code with punchcards can be lapped by a…

The difference is no one writes punchcards so the comparison is inapt. It is more like supposing AI eats everything humans attempt to do. They will take your work as you are working on it, any interaction at all. It is meta-plagiarism, on another level.

Re: Tao: Open math problems being non-renewably mined by AI

#36

Post by calvinmorrison »

_alternator_ wrote: post #32

This series of posts by Terry Tao is a direct response to the Navier-Stokes results (multiple results!) from the last 24 hours. The question is what is left after the levelling of mathematics, in all its senses, occurs? How can you protect a field that's under this much pressure in the next 6 months? > [I]t is now the identification of a promising problem which is the scarce and precious resource. We have now seen th…

> How can you protect a field that's under this much pressure in the next 6 months?

Sounds like they're going the way of the DoDo. better take that PhD, migrate to the new world and become a tuktuk driver.

Re: Tao: Open math problems being non-renewably mined by AI

#37

Post by free_bip »

henryfjordan wrote: post #21
vessenes wrote: post #3

That’s not untrue. But it’s also a misstatement of mathematical history. Many leading mathematicians historically have been highly competitive — Gauss comes to mind. Woe betide the lesser intellect that sent Gauss some ideas. The Newton Leibniz controversy was very serious business at the time in the UK and the continent. It was considered at the least a sin to reveal that sqrt(2) was irrational to those outside Pyth…

The story of the cubic equations is another great example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_equation Dudes straight up used to hoard solutions to equations and use them in math battles.

Right, the point is we're trying to avoid reverting back to such practices.

Re: Tao: Open math problems being non-renewably mined by AI

#38

Post by ModernMech »

_alternator_ wrote: post #32

This series of posts by Terry Tao is a direct response to the Navier-Stokes results (multiple results!) from the last 24 hours. The question is what is left after the levelling of mathematics, in all its senses, occurs? How can you protect a field that's under this much pressure in the next 6 months? > [I]t is now the identification of a promising problem which is the scarce and precious resource. We have now seen th…

If math is solved then move to an area that’s not. Why do fields need “protecting” from ai?

Re: Tao: Open math problems being non-renewably mined by AI

#39

Post by contravariant »

dev_dan_2 wrote: post #12
usrnm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a real argument to make rather than just appealing to authority?

It is a strong argument in this case though, because Terence Taos expertise is directly linked to his ability to not misstate the history of mathematics. Also note how the quote by Tao is in all likelyhood not meant as an absolute; rather than a statement of a trend - a handfull of counterexamples do I no way change anything about the truth value of Tao's quote. On the other heand; consider how absurd it would be if…

I mean mathematics has enough history that something can both have been false for centuries of mathematics research and true for centuries. Sometimes in different places simultaneously.

Terrence Tao can do his job perfectly well without being aware of any mathematical history, though I consider it unlikely that he is. I'm not seeing the direct link you're talking about, in fact history is frequently left out of mathematical teaching even when the history would in fact help in the understanding of some concepts.

Re: Tao: Open math problems being non-renewably mined by AI

#40

Post by fwip »

woodgala wrote: post #34

It sounds like a fancy way of saying kids will forget how to do math if they use calculators. The flattening of the space makes it hard to find new problems deemed significant? Maybe that went over my head, I’ll concede that point.

What? No, it's nothing like that. It means that if you have a critical insight and you share it out loud, somebody with no particular mathematical inclination can just spend lots of money to steal the credit from you.

It shifts power further from the worker toward those with capital.

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