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Proof of Corn

proofofcorn.com

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Re: Proof of Corn

#221

Post by recursive »

autoexec wrote: post #191
recursive wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally agree. But lack of "understanding" seems impossible to define in objective terms. Claude could certainly write you a nice essay about the history of corn and its use in culture and industry.

I could get the same thing out of "curl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn " but curl doesn't understand what corn is any more than Claude does. Claude doesn't understand corn any more than Wikipedia either. Just like with Wikipedia, everything Claude outputs about corn came from the knowledge of humans which was fed into it by other humans, then requested by other other humans. It's human understanding behind all of…

You know it when you see it, but it seems to like an objective definition that stands up to adversarial scrutiny. Where are the boundaries between knowing and repeating? It can be a useful idea to talk about, but if I ever find myself debating whether "knowledge" or "understanding" is happening, there will probably not be any fruitful result. It's only useful if everyone agrees already.

I guess that's basically the idea of the Chinese Room thought experiment.

Re: Proof of Corn

#222

Post by varispeed »

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…

Wouldn't actual proof to be valid need ability to send and receive email and transfer money?

Then it could do things like: "hey, do you have seeds? Send me pictures. I'll pay if I like them" or "I want to lease this land, I'll wire you the money." or "Seeds were delivered there, I need you to get your machinery and plant it"

Re: Proof of Corn

#223

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #153
zeckalpha wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way to look at it is that Seth is a Tool that Claude can leverage.

On one end, a farmer or agronomist who just uses a pen, paper, and some education and experience can manage a farm without any computer tooling at all - or even just forecasts the weather and chooses planting times based on the aches in their bones and a finger in the dirt. One who uses a spreadsheet or dedicated farming ERP as a tool can be a little more effective. With a lot of automation, that software tooling can…

Judging by the sheer verbosity of your reply there... I think you missed the cogent point:

> Seth is a Tool

It's that simple.

Re: Proof of Corn

#225

Post by LoganDark »

embedding-shape wrote: post #136
LoganDark wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel you're still missing the point of the experiment... The entire thing was based on how Claude felt empowering -- "I felt like I could do anything with software from my terminal"... It's not at all about autonomous robots... It's about what someone can achieve with the assistance of LLMs, in this case Claude

I think we might have read two different articles.

The article I read was linked at the top of the submission ("Read the full story")

Re: Proof of Corn

#226

Post by etamponi »

Alupis wrote: post #137

I can't be the only person seriously questioning the "Budget" page the AI created?[1] The estimate seems to leave out a lot of factors, including irrigation, machinery, the literal seeds, and more. $800 for a "custom operator" for 7 months - I don't believe it. Leasing 5 acres of farmable land (for presumably a year) for less than $1400... I don't believe it. The humans behind this experiment are going to get very ti…

I hope the budget has been written by AI, so that we can take a shortcut and immediately answer the question "Can AI grow corn?" with a "No".

I am extremely worried by the amount of hype I see around. I hope I am being in a bubble.

Re: Proof of Corn

#227

Post by ep103 »

pixl97 wrote: post #130
embedding-shape wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These experiments always seems to end up requiring the hand-holding of a human at top, seemingly breaking down the idea behind the experiment in the first place. Seems better to spend the time and energy on finding better ways for AI to work hand-in-hand with the user, empowering them, rather than trying to find the areas where we could replace humans with as little quality degradation as possible. That whole part fe…

>ather than trying to find the areas where we could replace humans with as little quality degradation as possible The particular problem here is it is very likely that the easiest people to replace with AI are the ones making the most money and doing the least work. Needless to say those people are going to fight a lot harder to remain employed than the average lower level person has political capital to accomplish.…

Ai hype is predicated on the popular idea that it can easily automate someone else's job, because that job they know nothing about is easy, but my job is safe from ai because it is so nuanced.

Re: Proof of Corn

#228

Post by bluGill »

pixl97 wrote: post #198
bluGill wrote: post #25

Polk County Iowa is where Des Moines is - the largest city in Iowa. (I live the next county over, but I bike to Polk county all the time) This is not a good location to run this because the farm land is owned by farmer/investors or farmer/developers - either way everybody knows the farm will become a suburb in the next 20 years and has priced accordingly (and if the timeline is is less than 5 years they have switched…

Hello. Ex-Iowegian here with family that owns large farms. >Farmers are already using computers to guide decisions. For way longer than most people expect. I remember reading farming magazines in the 80's showing computer based control for all kinds of farming operations. These days it is exceptionally high tech. Combines measure yield on a GPS grid. This is fed back into a mapping system for fertilization and soil a…

The farmers I know say you are throwing money away driving your tractor at planting time. If the autostreer is broken they will wait - risking rain and needing to switch to a lower yielding but faster growing seed - instead of drive themself. even in that worst case the autosteer is likely to make more money than driving their tractor now.

auto steer often can get another row in without over crowding. auto steer also shuts off ineividual rows as you cross where you planted already (saving thousands of dollars in seed)

Re: Proof of Corn

#229

Post by faidit »

smaudet wrote: post #149
bayindirh wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Researchers love to reduce everything into formulae, and believe that when they have the right set of formulae, they can simulate something as-is. Hint: It doesn't work that way. Another hint: I'm a researcher. Yes, we have found a great way to compress and remix the information we scrape from the internet, and even with some randomness, looks like we can emit the right set of tokens which makes sense, or search the…

> There's so much tacit knowledge and implicit computation coming from experience, emotions, sensory inputs and from our own internal noise. The premise of the article is stupid, though...yes, they aren't us. A human might grow corn, or decide it should be grown. But the AI doesn't need corn, it won't grown corn, and it doesn't need any of the other things. This is why, they are not useful to us . Put it in science f…

The Torment Nexus can't even put a loaf of bread on my table, so it's obvious we have nothing to fear from it!
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