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Proof of Corn

proofofcorn.com

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Re: Proof of Corn

#211

Post by wcfrobert »

This exercise is pointless.

Of course software can affect the physical world: Google Maps changes traffic patterns; DoorDash teleports takeoff food right to my doorstep; the weather app alters how people dress. This list is un-ending. But these effects are always second-order. Humans are always there in the background bridging the gap between bits and atoms (underpaid delivery drivers in the case of doordash).

The more interesting question is whether AI can __directly__ impact the physical world with robotics. Gemini can wax poetic about optimizing fertilizers usage, grid spacing for best cross-pollination, the optimum temperature, timing, watering frequency of growing corn, but can it actually go to Home Depot, purchase corn seeds, ... (long sequence of tasks) ..., nurture it for months until there's corn in my backyard? Each task within the (long sequence of tasks) is "making PB&J sandwich" [1] level of difficulty. Can AI generalize?

As is, LLMs are better positioned to replace decision-makers than the workers actually getting stuff done.

[1] http://static.zerorobotics.mit.edu/docs/team-activities/Prog...

Re: Proof of Corn

#212

Post by jrmg »

bwestergard wrote: post #12
treis wrote: post #6

It's cute but it seems like it's mostly going to come down to hiring a person to grow corn. Pretty cool that an AI can (sort of) do that autonomously but it's not quite the spirit of the challenge.

Right. If this level of indirection is allowed, the most efficient way to "grow corn" by the light of the original post would simply be to buy and hold Farmland Partners Inc (NYSE: FPI).

Or just, you know, buy some corn and know that that’s enough to get the market to grow some corn.

Re: Proof of Corn

#213

Post by jayd16 »

sgustard wrote: post #203
deejaaymac wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a huge fan of the unsolicited spam/letters/coupons/etc I get in my mail box from businesses and there's no way for me to opt out.

I have more confidence that if I reply "never contact me again" to AI it might actually obey, unlike any people that have spammed me.

...until that rolls off the context window.

Re: Proof of Corn

#214

Post by hahahahhaah »

snowmobile wrote: post #209
rdlw wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? There's $1370 earmarked for the lease.

I mean, it hasn't even "decided" whether it's going for "Iowa, Texas or Cordoba, Argentina". Just look at the files in the repo, it's looking an awful lot like those AI transcripts where somebody's "discovered a new kind of physics". https://github.com/brightseth/proof-of-corn/blob/main/proof-...

Loving the soulless summary of "HN Concerns"

Re: Proof of Corn

#215

Post by crdrost »

amelius wrote: post #206
ppchain wrote: post #22

The point they seem to be making is that AI can "orchestrate" the real world even if it can't interact physically. I can definitely believe that in 2026 someone at their computer with access to money can send the right emails and make the right bank transfers to get real people to grow corn for you. However even by that metric I don't see how Claude is doing that. Seth is the one researching the suppliers "with the h…

What I'd like to see is an AI simulating the economy, so that we can make predictions of what happens if we decrease wealth tax by X% or increasy income tax by Y% (just examples).

Why. Why would you want this.

The only framework we have figured out in which LLMs can build anything of use, requires LLMs to build a robot and then we expose the robot to the real world and the real world smacks it down and then we tell the LLMs about the wreckage. And we have to keep the feedback loops small and even then we have to make sure that the LLMs don't cheat. But you're not going to give it the opportunity to decrease the wealth tax or increase the income tax so it will never get the feedback it needs.

You can try to train a neural network with backpropagation to simulate the actual economy, but I think you don't have enough data to really train the network.

You can try to have it build a play economy where a bunch of agents have different needs and different skills and have to provide what they can when they can, but the "agent personalities" that you pick embed some sort of microeconomic outlook about what sort of rational purchasing agent exists -- and a lot of what markets do is just kind of random fad-chasing, not rationally modelable.

I just don't see why you'd use that square peg to fill this round hole. Just ask economics professors, they're happy to make those predictions.

Re: Proof of Corn

#216

Post by hahahahhaah »

tootie wrote: post #177
treis wrote: post #6

It's cute but it seems like it's mostly going to come down to hiring a person to grow corn. Pretty cool that an AI can (sort of) do that autonomously but it's not quite the spirit of the challenge.

It's like I can't grow corn, but I can buy corn. That's not the same thing. I can also write code to order corn for me, provided I supply it with a credit card and pay the bill. That is also not very interesting. Incidentally I clicked through to this guy's blog and found his predictions for 2025 and he was 0 for 13: https://avc.xyz/what-will-happen-in-2025-1

12 was close - we have bags.fm but twitter not tiktok

Re: Proof of Corn

#217

Post by Propelloni »

wcfrobert wrote: post #211

This exercise is pointless. Of course software can affect the physical world: Google Maps changes traffic patterns; DoorDash teleports takeoff food right to my doorstep; the weather app alters how people dress. This list is un-ending. But these effects are always second-order. Humans are always there in the background bridging the gap between bits and atoms (underpaid delivery drivers in the case of doordash). The mo…

Exactly, the same reason why an online petition will not change a thing---boots on the ground, ie. demonstrators, will.

Re: Proof of Corn

#218

Post by hahahahhaah »

Windchaser wrote: post #113
formerly_proven wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extremely funny to me but this is basically the literal premise of season two of Person of Interest. Yeah d'uh it's just a computer how would it actually do anything ? Well it just goes ahead and tells people to do stuff and wires them money. Easy.

Though a computer could also just control robots that actually plant, weed, water, and harvest the corn. That's a pretty big difference from just 'coordinating' the work. An AI that can also plant corn itself (via robots it controls) is much more impressive to me than an AI just send emails.

Read all the comments in this thread from farmers or farm-adjacent people.

Re: Proof of Corn

#219

Post by [deleted] »

crdrost wrote: post #215
amelius wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'd like to see is an AI simulating the economy, so that we can make predictions of what happens if we decrease wealth tax by X% or increasy income tax by Y% (just examples).

Why. Why would you want this. The only framework we have figured out in which LLMs can build anything of use, requires LLMs to build a robot and then we expose the robot to the real world and the real world smacks it down and then we tell the LLMs about the wreckage. And we have to keep the feedback loops small and even then we have to make sure that the LLMs don't cheat. But you're not going to give it the opportuni…

[deleted]

Re: Proof of Corn

#220

Post by snowmobile »

I don't know anything about farming, but the budget seems extremely dubious. 1370 on the lease, 350 on "IoT sensors" and "soil testing" (why?), but only 800 on "Custom Operator", which I'm assuming is supposed to be the labor, for seven months (apr-oct). So that's an average budget of 114 dollars on labor per month. For minimum wage that buys you 15 hours of work. Is this all a big trolling attempt aimed at HN users?
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