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Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance

scottaaronson.blog

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Re: Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance

#21

Post by weahg »

Aaronson has worked for OpenAI and probably has stock options. Gowers is funded by the "AI for math" fund by XTX markets.

The students who have been alarmed outside his office should take a course in marketing and journalistic ethics to assess the situation more rationally and figure out that the problem might sit in the office.

It is interesting by the way that Google does use Lean in a loop to refine proofs. This was called heresy by AI boosters earlier who said that Lean was never used in proofs.

Re: Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance

#22

Post by yuppiemephisto »

metalman wrote: post #6

bwaaaaaa! ha ha ha bwaaaaa! wheeeeeeuew! is the title what happens from too much ketamine? or is the hype machine being tasked with streeeetching things out for one more quarter? bills, elections, push back,lack of relevance, that sort of stuff.

Different Aaronson

Re: Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance

#23

Post by gizmondo »

weahg wrote: post #21

Aaronson has worked for OpenAI and probably has stock options. Gowers is funded by the "AI for math" fund by XTX markets. The students who have been alarmed outside his office should take a course in marketing and journalistic ethics to assess the situation more rationally and figure out that the problem might sit in the office. It is interesting by the way that Google does use Lean in a loop to refine proofs. This w…

> Aaronson has worked for OpenAI and probably has stock options.

IIRC he explicitly stated that he doesn't.

Re: Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance

#24

Post by lubujackson »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #3

Someone close to me is about to embark on a maths PhD. I'm curious about what advice people here would have for people in that position.

I wouldn't particularly worry. Big picture: don't base your future on the fears of the present. AI is a tool for humans, so be curious about it and use it if it can help you. Otherwise, ignore the noise.

Re: Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance

#25

Post by Kotlopou »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #3

Someone close to me is about to embark on a maths PhD. I'm curious about what advice people here would have for people in that position.

Here's a research mathematician replying to pretty much exactly this question, and I think it's worth reading: https://davidbessis.substack.com/p/letter-to-a-phd-student

It's also relevant for non-AI reasons. The upshot is: Do it if you want to. You're at an age where you're supposed to be mostly learning, but over time, start transitioning into whyever you did this (which doesn't have to mean staying in academia, and in fact can mean teaching or popularisation or consulting or...).

Re: Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance

#26

Post by vi_sextus_vi »

isomorphic_duck wrote: post #4

It remains to be seen if LLMs would do any good in the "theory-building" heavy fields of math. They have certainly proven themselves in branches of math where the progress is verifiable, but fields like AG commonly have papers that do not concretely solve a problem but provide a new perspective/framework. This is iterated upon if other mathematicians find the construction rich and interesting enough, which eventually…

This crystallised a take.

Unsolved Erdosh problems were touted as a cheap way to generate new perspectives. outcome has been slightly disappointing. overlooked frameworks were all that has been needed so far. not new ones. Could change as LLMs are pointed at other kinds of inexplicables

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