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Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

science.org

331–340 of 366 posts

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#331
post #302
post #257

> Mathematics produces not only a body of results, but also understanding, clarity, and judgment among the communities of mathematicians who have shaped them, often in the context of their own autonomously guided research. This expert knowledge is essential, both to effectively use mathematics, and to continue to articulate new and significant research questions. In a word, the job of the mathematics department is no…

> Outsourcing the work deprives you of who you become by writing it. Just because AI can do something that resembles work should not mean outsourcing work to it. Mathematicians should not outsource their work to AI just like programmers should not outsource programming to AI. Humans working with AIs in a tight loop means intellectual work becomes more high-level and creative, but a human should always own the work, v…

I don't think that is possible. Humans have always taken the path of least resistance, especially when it comes to work/school.

The idea that we just "trust everyone to carefully check and learn from AI output" as our barrier to human skillsets eroding is never going to work.

There is an Anthropic engineering post on HM front page that addresses this exact issue:

"... supervise the agent’s behavior via a human-in-the-loop. Claude Code previously protected against agents taking unintended actions by asking users for permission at each turn. Theoretically that works, but we’ve found the approach to be fallible. Our telemetry showed users approved roughly 93% of permission prompts. The more approvals a user sees, the less attention they pay to each, becoming over time much less diligent in their supervision. "

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#332

Anyone else draw similarities with this and the artists and authors who complained when gen ai first came out. I think a lot of people don't realise the disruption ai will cause to many industries, until its directly impacting them, basically personal fable at scale ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_fable ).

I see a ton of people praising AI tools replacing software engineers. There is like a weird schadenfreude and an ignorance that this will only affect the tech industry.

They don't seem to realize that 100X the resources have been dumped into building coding/design tools as other industries. As soon as that hose gets turned towards their industry they are going to be in a similar or worse boat.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a child, I lived in a neighborhood. Every week a garbage truck picked up the house hold trash. 5 guys were on that truck. 1 driver and 4 guys that actually lifted up various shaped trash cans and dumped them into the truck. Today I live in an apartment complex. 100 families take their trash to the compactor. 1 guy in a garbage truck comes once a week to collect the compacted refuse. I wonder what happened…

I wonder too, could you maybe actually check your theory?

My sarcasm wasn’t thick enough.

L

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#334

I see any kind automation as a good thing as long as it is reliable enough. We stopped copying books manually a long time ago, and the craft was lost, most of us can't do complex calculations manually etc. but it does not matter as long as we can rely on calculators and computers to do it. At this stage, the current wave of AI is not reliable enough that it would be safe to lose the abilities it can replace. The fail…

Automating manual labor or repetitive brainless tasks is way different from automating high skill knowledge work.

I agree that automation is good when it frees us up for higher pursuits, but what is the end goal? All human labor is replaced? No human can produce anything of value relative to a machine? What does our life look like then?

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#335
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Outsourcing the work deprives you of who you become by writing it. Just because AI can do something that resembles work should not mean outsourcing work to it. Mathematicians should not outsource their work to AI just like programmers should not outsource programming to AI. Humans working with AIs in a tight loop means intellectual work becomes more high-level and creative, but a human should always own the work, v…

I don't think that is possible. Humans have always taken the path of least resistance, especially when it comes to work/school. The idea that we just "trust everyone to carefully check and learn from AI output" as our barrier to human skillsets eroding is never going to work. There is an Anthropic engineering post on HM front page that addresses this exact issue: "... supervise the agent’s behavior via a human-in-the…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance

Yeah I'm seeing this with the attitude towards AI. Especially as the economic benefits increase, we will justify increasingly reckless approaches. (Probably until some major catastrophe. That seems to be how these things go.)

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#336
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you are right in a way, I think you miss the point. In the past "computer" was a job description and mechanical power came from serfs. They surely developed skills we are lacking today but I'd argue that overall the world is a better place with digital computers and electrical motors. It frees up these people to do something else, something of higher value.

Sure, the world is a better place with fewer serfs in it, but what exactly is of "higher value" than being a research mathematician? It's already a profession that consists essentially of exercising our highest and most distinctly human capacities: creativity, abstract reasoning, and passing the results of those on through a distinctive language and culture. I don't think the comparison with serfs is useful. I'm sure…

> But we should be aiming for a world that allows more people to become mathematicians, not fewer.

Yeah. UBI. We'll probably be seeing that in the next 15 years.

(In Europe, at least. In America the culture may not be able to stomach it, and I see even odds of a massive fake jobs program instead.)

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We argued that AI would free us to explore the arts. Instead it first came for written language and images. So what's left when it can write all the programs, drive all the cars, and AI sensors on farms can monitor and distribute nutrients. I remember watching TED Talks about how AI weapons need to be carefully studied, and instead we see them autonomously picking targets. I'm not seeing any higher values, instead I'…

I see that point of view but there's another that I've recently been thinking about. Many of the fields that were traditionally considered for "smart" people (STEM etc.) are the ones that are being really hammered by AI. Whereas, things which people considered lightweight often involving social relationships and interpersonal skills are still beyond the scope of AI (much of it even theoretically beyond the scope alth…

AI has autism. To emulate the normie is an impossible task.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#338
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a guy and stereotypes exist for a reason. Also, who do you think were the vast majority of AI researcher in the 50s, 60s, 70s?

> I'm a guy and stereotypes exist for a reason. What reason is that?

A neural network is a machine for detecting patterns in data.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#339

AI is the interpolation of the human corpus. Is it suprising AI recombines sucessfully where human attention has not explored all plausible solutions? N,o not especially. The key fallacy is that AI is other than human. This is really no different from computer proofs, e.g. 4 color theorem. The fact the prompt is not linked to the solution by individual human intention alone does not make the solution less human in or…

"AI recombines successfully" is a phrase that makes me think of the human corpus as a genome and a particular AI response as a child of the parent prompt, with the thinking a model does in response to the prompt basically being a form of information sex.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk man creativity is something pretty human. insufferable people are very fine if, for example, music & art is outsourced to AI so they can make a some $$. But those things are meant to be enjoyed, not consumed.

This fact is no longer true. The mathematic domains are up for grabs by anything that can conquer it: https://openai.com/index/model-disproves-discrete-geometry-c...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48392004
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