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A misalignment of AI in mathematics

mathandai.org

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Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#741

Post by redox99 »

trimbo wrote: post #703
redox99 wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many graduate students (I know) are having a crisis if any of their research worth it? If AI can (or will) do everything, what's the point of doing experiments and all? This will eventually deter a whole generation of curious minded students from research. Those who think it's me or the machine will fail. Those who realize how much you can accelerate your research with the help of AI will succeed.

> Those who realize how much you can accelerate your research with the help of AI will succeed. Yes, but, in the last week we saw an AI lab front-run[1] the research of mathematicians doing what you suggest. The lab threw something like $15M of compute at a problem and the researchers were able to spend nowhere near that. I think the authors are more concerned about that kind of asymmetry and race to publish the resu…

This has always happened, way before AI. You'd spend months or years building and growing your business, and then Google would release a feature or product that would kill your business overnight because they can throw way more money at the problem, plus their branding. That's life.

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#742

Post by paulhebert »

pickleRick243 wrote: post #662
paulhebert wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think people dedicate their life to mathematics for clout? If clout was the goal I don’t think becoming a lifelong mathematics academic would be the first step

for many fairly strong mathematicians, the career calculus is fame and status (mild though it may be) through mathematics or anonymity but financial reward in tech or finance. Yes, clout by becoming a lifelong academic is in fact rational for some and part of their motivation. Of course they really like what they do as well, but earning the respect of the peers they know are also respected by a large swathe of societ…

Yeah that’s totally fair!

I guess that type of “clout” feels different to me.

Wanting to be validated by peers for your talents in a niche field vs. using millions to try to solve a math problem that you don’t really care about with AI to market the gigantic company you work for.

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#743

Post by tomrod »

saghm wrote: post #554
mb7733 wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But in future most proofs will be for consumption by other AI models in the pursuit of yet other proofs. What is the purpose of that? Its like art being produced for AI to consume. What is gained from that?

I mean, was the point of math ever just because some humans enjoyed doing it? Even though a lot of it is theoretical, there's been all sorts of useful things that have come out of it as well due to an improved understanding of the universe through new ways of thinking about it. If it got to the point where no human could understand it and there were no ways to actually use it, I don't think anyone would bother having…

> was the point of math ever just because some humans enjoyed doing it?

Yes.

Friends and I often work on Putnam problems and this series:

The (Almost) Impossible Integrals, Sums, and Series by Cornel Ioan Vălean

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#744

Post by onetimeusename »

stabbles wrote: post #519
psvv wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the parent comment meant professional, high-level chess. The kind people get played to play, not just do for a hobby. That's absolutely on life support. I'm not sure what the equivalent would look like in the math field, but it probably involves a lot of mathematicians losing their jobs and the quality of human-produced math decreasing overall. The quality of the math in general would be fine, since in this s…

Mathematics is more than establishing arbitrary facts (although some look like curiosities), it's also defining what interesting research directions are and establishing common language/notation. I think that will stay relevant?

Why? How do you define interesting research directions? That used to be defined by testing the limits of human understanding i.e. some people can't figure something out. AI might have very different ideas about what is interesting and I am not sure what humans would get out of putting years into understanding AI proofs for what? What are we doing at that point? Like if you spend years understanding some AI proof of theorem 123456, why is that meaningful? I am actually asking why you think defining interesting research directions will stay relevant. In my opinion, people spend years acquiring knowledge so they can work on problems which is separate.

There's two points about this I am assuming 1) Mathematics actually has a significant subjectivity to it and is community oriented and not just climbing a never ending list of theorems that exists in the universe 2) A lot of mathematical research work is inside of a subfield and isn't directly motivated by applications. Sometimes it is but e.g. people don't work on obscure theorems about elliptic curves because of a dire need for that but more because the community found it interesting.

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#746

Post by tomrod »

coderenegade wrote: post #624
3ash14 wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stockfish isn't owned by a club of three trillionaires. It does not cost $15 million to achieve a result in Stockfish. Stockfish does not steal research or scoop researchers. The concentration of computing resources and capital should be examined by the math community.

This is the real problem. We're looking at a future where those who control AI have an insurmountable advantage in everything. They can control the amount of intelligence the masses have access to -- for their own safety, of course -- and they will never, ever be able to close the gap.

Say they do. What then? Will people buy from them? What if we decide not to?

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#748

Post by cute_boi »

sdeframond wrote: post #162
imdsm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am on this track too. If AI leads to advancements, objectively that's a positive (depending on the advancement I guess) but it's only when mathematicians realise they'll get beaten to every thing now that they're outraged.

Say AI becomes the best at everything. Best at chess/go, best at maths, philosophy, economics, romantic advices ... and so on. Then what's the point of thinking by oneself? Of talking to one another? What's the point of being human if we dont do human things but entirely rely on AI? I believe this is more or less these mathematicians' argument.

>> Once a robot can do everything an IQ 80 human can do, only better and cheaper, there will be no reason to employ IQ 80 humans. Once a robot can do everything an IQ 120 human can do, only better and cheaper, there will be no reason to employ IQ 120 humans. Once a robot can do everything an IQ 180 human can do, only better and cheaper, there will be no reason to employ humans at all, in the unlikely scenario that there are any left by that point. [1]

The answer may sound harsh, but we will not need human once AI reaches that threshold. Current IQ of AI is currently 130 as per Google.

[1] https://www.slatestarcodexabridged.com/Meditations-On-Moloch

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#749

Post by tomrod »

falcor84 wrote: post #496
genxy wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why if humanity had empathy, it would be working on how to make smarter ants, so that they can learn more advanced geometry.

I love that as a goal! Perhaps indeed a better understanding of what intelligence really is would allow this sort of Uplift (as in Brin's books).

A fellow Brin aficionado!

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#750

Post by coderenegade »

immmmmm wrote: post #699
redox99 wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many graduate students (I know) are having a crisis if any of their research worth it? If AI can (or will) do everything, what's the point of doing experiments and all? This will eventually deter a whole generation of curious minded students from research. Those who think it's me or the machine will fail. Those who realize how much you can accelerate your research with the help of AI will succeed.

Those who have token money will succeed. It biases maths and theoretical physics towards the rich. That one thing that was free.

I think the only thing that stops this from becoming true is what Chinese and European labs decide to do. If they can keep up and keep opening their weights, then we might see some kind of democratization. But right now it looks like the gap has increased, and those groups can't replicate research that isn't published, or distill models that are internal only, or for select (very wealthy) customers.
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