Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah. My other favorite example are books. Why do nonfiction books exist? There are some pathologies and corner cases, but fundamentally: to develop and share new ideas. Downstream from that, if it reads well and if you're lucky, you make some money. But now, LLMs can generate hundreds of books per hour. They make up 80-90% of new arrivals in many nonfiction categories on Amazon. They short-circuit the system, allowi…
Now you piqued my interest. Any good AI-written books out there? I thought it's all slop.
A misalignment of AI in mathematics
311–320 of 642 posts
Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#312Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#313Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
So it wasted everyone's time, thousands of hours of research trying to disprove something said very loudly. What OpenAI is doing is a DoS of the scientific community: wasting your time trying to check if they're not wrong, and claiming glory in the mean time.
Agreed! Although, if done by a mathematician, it's not a ~complete waste. I think the community learns something along the way. Is there an established term for the idea of "DoS"? I've taken to calling it slop fatigue.
Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#315Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a simple matter of "becoming good at", and yes, I could very well have similar concerns, depending on how it impacts the field. The statement itself mentions that such concerns exist in many other fields. I doubt OpenAI will take such a combative stance and accuse these mathematicians of "demanding" things, as you do. As I said, the purpose of this is marketing and the statement simultaneously undermines the…
So let’s say OpenAI cure cancer and put every cancer researcher out of work depriving them of intellectual satisfaction, this would also be a problem? It would certainly impact the field. The fact is these fields are supported by society because of the benefits to everyone else. Once the same results can be achieved in a cheaper and faster way that is what will be done. We should mourn this in the same way we do bugg…
Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#317To be honest I didn’t get that much outrage here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49662116 It seems like a lot of the issue here is that these problems aren’t interesting in and of themselves, but they lead down interesting roads. It defeats the purpose if you solve them without getting any real understanding. It’s akin to saying you’ve solved “pancake flipping” problems with a waffle maker, or “travelling sales…
Nothing is stopping these folks from continuing to study the problems and arriving at their own solutions so they can continue having whatever insights along the way. Well, one thing is stopping them. There will be no more adoration for their genius. If you truly do it for understanding and not the attention, carry on. AI should change nothing about your motivations.
People like Grigori Perelman would baffle you, a mathematician who solved the Poincaré Conjecture, refused the monetary prize, field medal and continues to live a life of total recluse.
For most mathematicians their primary drive is chasing the unknown, not for anyone’s adoration, but to pursue their desire to see what lies in the beyond.
Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
It has been best at chess for quite a while. Yet everyone knows who is Magnus Carlsen, even though at no point of his career he was stronger than the machine
Magnus Carlsen plays fellow humans at the game because people still care about human competitions. What motivation would a mathematician have for solving already solved problems by hand? Can you imagine someone spending years working on a proof for an already-proved theorem just in case it leads to new insight?
Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#319Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#320They can get with the program or be the equivalent of a genius SWE writing assembly on punchcards in 2026. The only thing I read from this is their ego being bruised by a machine. If these people cared more about discovery and advancement of human knowledge the only thing they should be doing is celebrating. There's no proof of plagarism but that's an independent issue. How are they not realizing that in the future c…