Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

After Math

terrytao.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 171 posts

Re: After Math

#151

Post by yunwal »

cubefox wrote: post #50
malux85 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that purpose death is a normal step towards enlightenment and it was only the fierce, unrelenting, all consuming drive of capitalism in the western world over the last 4 or 5 generations that have pushed everyone to define themselves (nearly) solely in terms of their work. I do not at all feel purpose death from AI (been a software developer professionally for 20 years, now a founder), but I consider my…

> Any interruption or automation to what Im currently doing will just open the door to exploring new and different things. But that's the rub: At some point, possibly sooner than most people think, there won't be anything left that isn't automated. Any human trying to do something new will then be worse at achieving it, and likely even detrimental. Just like the monetary value of horse labor today isn't just small, i…

Literally no person on earth can beat a computer in chess. Practically no person on earth can really teach a computer anything about chess. For some crazy reason, people keep playing

Re: After Math

#152

Post by trashface »

suddenlybananas wrote: post #105
emerongi wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’d say Terrance has recently left the denial phase, the anger phase I’m sure he wisely kept off the Internet, and is currently in the bargaining phase - ie scrambling to change the goal posts. I wonder if he will wisely keep the depression / burnout phases also off the internet. You're making up a narrative about another person. You have no clue what's happening to him, without talking to him.

Not only that, but this blogpost wasn't written by Tao.

The Tao is eternal. The game plays the game.

Re: After Math

#153

Post by cubefox »

yunwal wrote: post #151
cubefox wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any interruption or automation to what Im currently doing will just open the door to exploring new and different things. But that's the rub: At some point, possibly sooner than most people think, there won't be anything left that isn't automated. Any human trying to do something new will then be worse at achieving it, and likely even detrimental. Just like the monetary value of horse labor today isn't just small, i…

Literally no person on earth can beat a computer in chess. Practically no person on earth can really teach a computer anything about chess. For some crazy reason, people keep playing

Sure, but play is different from work.

Re: After Math

#154

Post by eru »

emerongi wrote: post #59
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #12

I think as a civilization we need to postulate a new term: “purpose death” Defined something like: temporary state of complete loss of personal purpose and the experience of existential dread from never achieving self-actualization in spite of the tremendous time commitment towards excellence in a now automated intelligence. I truly think because of the pace of innovation this will be a universal feeling for every hu…

> I’d say Terrance has recently left the denial phase, the anger phase I’m sure he wisely kept off the Internet, and is currently in the bargaining phase - ie scrambling to change the goal posts. I wonder if he will wisely keep the depression / burnout phases also off the internet. You're making up a narrative about another person. You have no clue what's happening to him, without talking to him.

And the whole stages of grief model was just made up anyway.

Re: After Math

#155

Post by jdw64 »

oliculipolicula wrote: post #150
bonoboTP wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old timey mining, or the more romantic eras of seafaring also provided more camaraderie than what modern jobs provide. There may be some longing for those more pure and valiant days, but we moved on. You can still discuss about AI assisted results with your peers. I guess it's like how people miss the days of heated arguments about factual questions whereas the smartphone era led to someone just pulling out their pho…

This is incredibly related to how people seek meaning in family, friends, or (hardly foolproof) new experiences. Because careers, skills, and other society-wide abstract purpose no longer provide a stable identity based on monthly guarantees of dopamine. In a sense, programming (et tu, mathematics) has become a bullshit job. Though, it will take some time (~6 months) before "fulltime" investors or serial SaaS founder…

[dead]

Re: After Math

#156

Post by [deleted] »

emerongi wrote: post #59
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #12

I think as a civilization we need to postulate a new term: “purpose death” Defined something like: temporary state of complete loss of personal purpose and the experience of existential dread from never achieving self-actualization in spite of the tremendous time commitment towards excellence in a now automated intelligence. I truly think because of the pace of innovation this will be a universal feeling for every hu…

> I’d say Terrance has recently left the denial phase, the anger phase I’m sure he wisely kept off the Internet, and is currently in the bargaining phase - ie scrambling to change the goal posts. I wonder if he will wisely keep the depression / burnout phases also off the internet. You're making up a narrative about another person. You have no clue what's happening to him, without talking to him.

[deleted]

Re: After Math

#157

Post by overfeed »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #68

This kind of argument is always dangerous, because it essentially resorts to moving goalposts. "Oh, AI can now do X? Sure it is amazing, but it can't do Y yet, so we're totally safe!" Just because humans can't process the proof or see the advancements, it doesn't mean that it will remain that way in the future or that it will not change the field. If you only define yourself by things AI can't do yet , you're about t…

> This kind of argument is always dangerous, because it essentially resorts to moving goalposts.

Nope, introspecting motivation is useful. There have been similar posts made about people using bots in PvP competitive online gaming: some people play to enjoy the game, and hopefully get better until they reach their skill ceiling. Others play (just)to win, and are open to buying aimbot hardware and software

Re: After Math

#158

Post by bonoboTP »

oliculipolicula wrote: post #150
bonoboTP wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old timey mining, or the more romantic eras of seafaring also provided more camaraderie than what modern jobs provide. There may be some longing for those more pure and valiant days, but we moved on. You can still discuss about AI assisted results with your peers. I guess it's like how people miss the days of heated arguments about factual questions whereas the smartphone era led to someone just pulling out their pho…

This is incredibly related to how people seek meaning in family, friends, or (hardly foolproof) new experiences. Because careers, skills, and other society-wide abstract purpose no longer provide a stable identity based on monthly guarantees of dopamine. In a sense, programming (et tu, mathematics) has become a bullshit job. Though, it will take some time (~6 months) before "fulltime" investors or serial SaaS founder…

There are examples of foregoing the use of known tech, like the Amish, but it really means a deep break with the western ethos and takes something like a deep committing to a religion to carry out. The default is that you work on things with the honest goal of making it work. Yes, we've become too good at making tech But a balance of camaraderie in honest effort, but not quite as much to be really successful is a knife's edge. In a way, solving all the problems in the textbook may be a sad moment, despite the fact that working on it hard meant that it would happen if you're competent. If you want to try hard but fail perpetually, like Sysyphus, you have to be intentionally incompetent. Like always try to solve your math problems when drunk. Then you won't get sad that there are no more problems because you will not be able to solve them.

There are warning examples in religion and myth, like Ikarus, the Tower of Babel etc that striving for more capability is not always good. Of course these religions are dismissed by modern people. Well, this is the result.

Re: After Math

#159

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

reisse wrote: post #82

The elephant in the room no one talks about yet, imo, is "should public funding of math studies be adjusted due to AI breakthroughs?" The sports comparison is wrong here because general public never paid for the specific match results. The value was always in the show, the advertising and betting around it, the health and educational value of doing sports, etc. And the sport mostly lives on what it earns, not on publ…

> The elephant in the room

...is the fact that the people pontificating on AI and math the most are also the people who understand AI and math the least.

Re: After Math

#160

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #68

This kind of argument is always dangerous, because it essentially resorts to moving goalposts. "Oh, AI can now do X? Sure it is amazing, but it can't do Y yet, so we're totally safe!" Just because humans can't process the proof or see the advancements, it doesn't mean that it will remain that way in the future or that it will not change the field. If you only define yourself by things AI can't do yet , you're about t…

If you ask an AI if "P=NP", it will certainly give an answer. It has to, because the answer is either "yes" or "no".

If you ask it to then prove its assertion, it will then certainly output the tokens that look like a plausible proof. It has to, as it is programmed too.

This "proof" might even be thousands of pages of very technical looking and professional sounding jargon.

It's not a real proof though, and as an artifact it is 100% useless to both the field of mathematics and humanity.

Post reply on HN