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

The cultural divide between mathematics and AI

sugaku.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 187 posts

Re: The cultural divide between mathematics and AI

#31

Post by kkylin »

As Feynman once said [0]: "Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it." I don't think it's any different for mathematics, programming, a lot of engineering, etc.

I can see a day might come when we (research mathematicians, math professors, etc) might not exist as a profession anymore, but there will continue to be mathematicians. What we'll do to make a living when that day comes, I have no idea. I suspect many others will also have to figure that out soon.

[0] I've seen this attributed to the Character of Physical Law but haven't confirmed it

Re: The cultural divide between mathematics and AI

#32

Post by nicf »

feoren wrote: post #28
anon291 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I get the feeling you've never really talked to many academics.

Especially not mathematicians! No one goes into math academia for the money, and people with math Ph.D.'s are often very employable at much higher salaries if they jump ship to industry. The reason mathematicians stay in the field --- and I say this as someone who didn't stay, for a variety of reasons --- is because they love math and want to spend their time researching and teaching it.

Re: The cultural divide between mathematics and AI

#33

Post by unsui »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #25
Henchman21 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve worked in tech my entire adult life and boy do I feel this deep in my soul. I have slowly withdrawn from the higher-level tech designs and decision making. I usually disagree with all of it. Useless pursuits made only for resume fodder. Tech decisions made based on the bonus the CTO gets from the vendors (Superbowl tickets anyone?) not based on the suitability of the tech. But absolutely worst of all is the arro…

> Move fast and break things!! Even when its the society you live in. This is the part I don't get honestly Are people just very shortsighted and don't see how these changes are potentially going to cause upheaval? Do they think the upheaval is simply going to be worth it? Do they think they will simply be wealthy enough that it won't affect them much, they will be insulated from it? Do they just never think about co…

I've called this out numerous times (and gotten downvoted regularly), with what I call the "Cult of Optimization"

aka optimization-for-its-own-sake, aka pathological optimization.

It's basically meatspace internalizing and adopting the paperclip problem as a "good thing" to pursue, screw externalities and consequences.

And, lo-and-behold, my read for why it gets downvoted here is that a lot of folks on HN ascribe to this mentality, as it is part of the HN ethos to optimize , often pathologically.

Re: The cultural divide between mathematics and AI

#34

Post by brobdingnagians »

feoren wrote: post #27
bluefirebrand wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Move fast and break things!! Even when its the society you live in. This is the part I don't get honestly Are people just very shortsighted and don't see how these changes are potentially going to cause upheaval? Do they think the upheaval is simply going to be worth it? Do they think they will simply be wealthy enough that it won't affect them much, they will be insulated from it? Do they just never think about co…

> Do they think they will simply be wealthy enough that it won't affect them much, they will be insulated from it? Yes, partly that. Mostly they only care about their rank. Many people would burn down the country if it meant they could be king of the ashes. Even purely self-interested people should welcome a better society for all, because a rising tide lifts all boats. But not only are they selfish, they're also ver…

Reminds me of the Paradise Lost quote, "Better to rule in Hell, than serve in Heaven", such an insightful book for understanding a certain type of person from Milton. Beautiful imagery throughout too, highly recommend.

Re: The cultural divide between mathematics and AI

#35

Post by anon291 »

feoren wrote: post #28
anon291 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I get the feeling you've never really talked to many academics.

I work with the ones that made the jump to industry, so no, I'm confronted with the divide day in and day out. The academics that either switch to industry or maintain close industry ties, typically do not seem to share these concerns, or at least, can contextualize them.

Re: The cultural divide between mathematics and AI

#36

Post by tech_ken »

xg15 wrote: post #22

> One question generated particular concern: what would happen if an AI system produced a proof of a major conjecture like the Riemann Hypothesis, but the proof was too complex for humans to understand? Would such a result be satisfying? Would it advance mathematical understanding? The consensus seemed to be that while such a proof might technically resolve the conjecture, it would fail to deliver the deeper understa…

> Or more generally, how do you verify a proof that you don't understand?

This is the big question! Computer-aided proof has been around forever. AI seems like just another tool from that box. Albeit one that has the potential to provide 'human-friendly' answers, rather than just a bunch of symbolic manipulation that must be interpreted.

Re: The cultural divide between mathematics and AI

#37

Post by Someone »

mvieira38 wrote: post #29
lordleft wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a mathematician so please feel free to correct me...but wouldn't there still be an opportunity for humans to try to understand why a proof solved by a machine is true? Or are you afraid that the culture of mathematics will shift towards being impatient about this sorts of questions?

That is kind of hard to do. Human reasoning and computer reasoning is very different, enough so that we can't really grasp it. Take chess, for example. Humans tend to reason in terms of positions and tactics, but computers just brute force it (I'm ignoring stuff like Alpha Zero because computers were way better than us even before that). There isn't much to learn there, so GMs just memorize the computer moves for so…

> so GMs just memorize the computer moves for so and so situation and then go back to their past heuristics after n moves

I think they also adjust their heuristics, based on looking at thousands of computer moves.

Re: The cultural divide between mathematics and AI

#38

Post by dkarl »

Henchman21 wrote: post #15
nicf wrote: post #8

I'm a former research mathematician who worked for a little while in AI research, and this article matched up very well with my own experience with this particular cultural divide. Since I've spent a lot more time in the math world than the AI world, it's very natural for me to see this divide from the mathematicians' perspective, and I definitely agree that a lot of the people I've talked to on the other side of thi…

I’ve worked in tech my entire adult life and boy do I feel this deep in my soul. I have slowly withdrawn from the higher-level tech designs and decision making. I usually disagree with all of it. Useless pursuits made only for resume fodder. Tech decisions made based on the bonus the CTO gets from the vendors (Superbowl tickets anyone?) not based on the suitability of the tech. But absolutely worst of all is the arro…

> But absolutely worst of all is the arrogance. The hubris. The thinking that because some human somewhere has figured a thing out that its then just implicitly known by these types.

I worked in an organization afflicted by this and still have friends there. In the case of that organization, it was caused by an exaggerated glorification of management over ICs. Managers truly did act according to the belief, and show every evidence of sincerely believing in it, that their understanding of every problem was superior to the sum of the knowledge and intelligence of every engineer under them in the org chart, not because they respected their engineers and worked to collect and understand information from them, but because managers are a higher form of humanity than ICs, and org chart hierarchy reflects natural superiority. Every conversation had to be couched in terms that didn't contradict those assumptions, so the culture had an extremely high tolerance for hand-waving and BS. Naturally this created cover for all kinds of selfish decisions based on politics, bonuses, and vendor perks. I'm very glad I got out of there.

I wouldn't paint all of tech with the same brush, though. There are many companies that are better, much better. Not because they serve higher ideals, but because they can't afford to get so detached from reality, because they'd fail if they didn't respect technical considerations and respect their ICs.

Re: The cultural divide between mathematics and AI

#39

Post by throw8404948k »

sarchertech wrote: post #26
throw8404948k wrote: post #16

> This quest for deep understanding also explains a common experience for mathematics graduate students: asking an advisor a question, only to be told, "Read these books and come back in a few months." With AI advisor I do not have this problem. It explains parts I need, in a way I understand. If I study some complicated topic, AI shortens it from months to days. I was somehow mathematically gifted when younger, sadl…

I think you’re missing the point of what the advisor is saying.

No, I get it.

My point is human advisor does not have enough time, to answer questions and correctly explain the subject. I may get like 4 hours a week, if lucky. Books are just a cheap substitute for real dialog and reasoning with a teacher.

Most ancient philosophy papers were in form of dialog. It is much faster to explain things.

AI is a game changer. It shortens feedback loop from a week to hour! It makes mistakes (as humans do), but it is faster to find them. And it also develops cognitive skills while finding them.

It is like programming in low level C in notepad 40 years ago. Versus high level language with IDE, VCS, unit tests...

Or like farming resources in Rust. Booring repetitive grind...

Re: The cultural divide between mathematics and AI

#40

Post by daveguy »

anon291 wrote: post #35
feoren wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the feeling you've never really talked to many academics.

I work with the ones that made the jump to industry, so no, I'm confronted with the divide day in and day out. The academics that either switch to industry or maintain close industry ties, typically do not seem to share these concerns, or at least, can contextualize them.

Academics that decided they didn't really want to be academics, but instead switched to industry. Seems like a significant sample bias, no?
Post reply on HN