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A misalignment of AI in mathematics

mathandai.org

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Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#911

Post by noisy_boy »

int_19h wrote: post #885
noisy_boy wrote: post #781

We have an intellectual structure that has been largely the same irrespective of the level of technological advancement. The brightest among us think about hard problems. Even though all of us may not understand those advances, we all appreciate and celebrate them to varying degrees. Those who are able to comprehend have time to absorb, generate more discussion. In time, we honor those achievements that withstand the…

> The process is as much a human experience as is the result. Sure, but in your scenario, the process is the experience for a small group of people, while the result benefits everyone (perhaps not directly, but ultimately via a chain of applications). Which one is more important? It's not at all a new dilemma either. Jacquard looms destroyed the "human experience" of manual weaving for craftsmen who spent decades to…

> They also made clothing orders of magnitude cheaper for everyone else.

They also contributed to consumerism and use-and-throw culture and mounds of waste around the world. People were not mortgaging their homes to buy clothes. There was a spectrum.

Also, your example is of physical skill. Mechanized farming has lifted many out of hunger. All automation isn't bad.

However this is the last frontier of higher pursuit for mankind - using our minds. This is a totally different level.

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#912

Post by pks016 »

tossandthrow wrote: post #813
pks016 wrote: post #627

I never expected this many people (on this thread) arguing semantics and what not. I know that not everyone has morality and ethics, but I didn't realize it was this bad. I'm afraid of the ripple effect of the agenda pushed by AI companies will have. In future and even now, they say AI has significantly progressed math and scientific research in general. There is truth to this, but the narrative has done more damage…

I don't understand why you introduce morality and ethics into your comment? Pointing out that regressive Ai politics likely are not going to help researchers crisis of purpose is not unethical. You also assume in your comment that we need new large generations of researchers, and that knowledge transfer through academic institutions is important. I get the fear. But entertaining ideas of impact to institutions and po…

We don't know for this particular case with certainty.

But, here many people are okay with the concept of stealing other ideas, plagiarism, unethical aspects of collaboration in research. At least for me and many people I know, this is no okay. This is the part for morality and ethics. I see that no everyone agrees with this.

The issue is, these AI ecosystems don't effect everyone equally. Not everyone knows how to judge AI model output accurately. There is already a large divide on AI usage in research. The fear comes from this. If we wait longer, it might be alright too late. I could be also wrong with these speculations but better to cautious.

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#913

Post by xanderlewis »

noosphr wrote: post #826
pks016 wrote: post #627

I never expected this many people (on this thread) arguing semantics and what not. I know that not everyone has morality and ethics, but I didn't realize it was this bad. I'm afraid of the ripple effect of the agenda pushed by AI companies will have. In future and even now, they say AI has significantly progressed math and scientific research in general. There is truth to this, but the narrative has done more damage…

Academia has been a toxic wasteland for decades. The ship caught fire and sunk long before open AI strip minded it prestige.

So tell us your story. It’s highly relevant to how we should interpret your opinion.

Otherwise you just sound like a jaded bitter washup.

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#914

Post by casey2 »

If the goal of math is to communicate results it has utterly failed long before AI and they are in a weak position to defend this view. Every researcher is only taught a handful of DSLs and their papers are written in PSL(problem specific language). That may be necessary for a human to actually make forward progress in math, but it's certainly not conducive to reading (and certainly not when symbols are favored over English)

I think the mathematics community should realign their goals with humanities, not just declare themselves a "mini humanity", this means expanding human taste, intuition and communicating systems and their associated structural truths in a human friendly way. Bye-bye standardized education you won't be missed.

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#915

Post by largbae »

We need a new way to describe "alignment". The term "misalignment" assumes that there is some perfect set of beliefs or practices to be out of alignment with. Do Atheists, Christians, Jews and Muslims agree on what is perfect alignment? How about Europeans, Americans and Chinese? Humans, Dolphins, Rabbits and Fruit Flies?

Alignment alone is not enough. Aligned with _what_?

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#917

Post by gregdeon »

socketcluster wrote: post #810

As a software engineer, 6 months ago. I was better than AI in essentially every way except raw typing speed. Now AI has surpassed me in fine-grained problem-solving ability. It can write more reliable code than I can, faster than I can, provided it is given the right guidance. But one thing that I'm still much better at is identifying technical opportunities and choosing the right tradeoffs. My feeling is that fronti…

This is exactly how I feel about the recent ChatGPT models. It feels like I'm working with an incredibly enthusiastic junior student who listens to everything I say, checks it against my entire codebase, and thinks through all of the possible connections 1000x faster than I can. But it doesn't spot the ideas first. It actually makes work quite fun, since I can spend so much more time in "idea space" instead of "implementation space".

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#919

Post by dwa3592 »

int_19h wrote: post #906
dwa3592 wrote: post #42

While I agree with this and appreciate Tao and other mathematicians to take the time to do this. There are similar concerns for many many other fields aka there is a general misalignment of technology. Take Software engineering for example, I can't believe there is a class of software engineers who wake up everyday and tell themselves, "today is the day I am going to automate the rest of my job". Lets forget the hype…

> can't believe there is a class of software engineers who wake up everyday and tell themselves, "today is the day I am going to automate the rest of my job". The whole point of software engineering is automating processes; it's literally all that we do. Not only that, but the endgame has been explicitly stated by Our Lady Ada of Lovelace herself: > [The Analytical Engine] might act upon other things besides number,…

>>can't believe there is a class of software engineers who wake up everyday and tell themselves, "today is the day I am going to automate the rest of my job"

>>The whole point of software engineering is automating processes

There is a difference between 'automating a process' and 'automating oneself' and making one obsolete a benchmark. I can sympathize if it's confusing for you to understand that.

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