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A misalignment of AI in mathematics

mathandai.org

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Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#331

Post by archagon »

fg137 wrote: post #303
david-gpu wrote: post #141

Tao's critique of AI in the field of mathematics reminds me of what French art critic Charles Baudelaire said in the 19th century about photography [0]. Baudelaire argued that photography became a haven for failed painters, the sorts of hacks that could not finish proper training. Photography, as a mechanical rendering of the world, could only record what already existed; it couldn't transform reality the way a paint…

We can start having a meaningful discussion when people use real reasoning instead of analogy.

You don’t have to participate in the discussion, but it will take place regardless of your preferences.

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#332

Post by ksoped »

fg137 wrote: post #303
david-gpu wrote: post #141

Tao's critique of AI in the field of mathematics reminds me of what French art critic Charles Baudelaire said in the 19th century about photography [0]. Baudelaire argued that photography became a haven for failed painters, the sorts of hacks that could not finish proper training. Photography, as a mechanical rendering of the world, could only record what already existed; it couldn't transform reality the way a paint…

We can start having a meaningful discussion when people use real reasoning instead of analogy.

Analogy is a meaningful way to discuss. Drawing parallels can illustrate a point and bring up nuances by pointing out where it falls apart.

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#333

Post by lasersox »

causalmodels wrote: post #269
omnicognate wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statement is not about AI but about the behaviour of AI companies. OpenAI have put vast resource into solving open maths problems: many millions of dollars of compute just on the Navier-Stokes result, plus whatever they spent on the broader Millenium Prize problems initiative and the other results they have published. Anthropic are doing the same. The statement is asking them to stop doing this. AI companies are…

What do we do about the problems that don't require many millions of dollars in resources? Last weekend I spun up a small agent swarm and pointed it at a field of math I have some affinity towards. Within four hours I had settled three conjectures, one of which is rather famous (for the field, not in general). It cost me about four hundred dollars. I am at a loss about what to do with these results. On one hand I fee…

How do you know the proofs are correct?

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#334

Post by suddenlybananas »

Art9681 wrote: post #159

This reads like people lamenting a bygone era and making a desperate attempt to bring it back. I'm sorry. Outside of the good ol' boys club, no one cares about some process they've romanticized simply because "that's how its always been done". Absolute nonsense. We are moving forward and if that means no human wins a fields medal because they didnt spend three decades working on a problem that could be solved in thre…

Yeah who gives a shit about knowledge or understanding or insight.

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#335

Post by ksoped »

larodi wrote: post #322
david-gpu wrote: post #141

Tao's critique of AI in the field of mathematics reminds me of what French art critic Charles Baudelaire said in the 19th century about photography [0]. Baudelaire argued that photography became a haven for failed painters, the sorts of hacks that could not finish proper training. Photography, as a mechanical rendering of the world, could only record what already existed; it couldn't transform reality the way a paint…

Wonder what would've Baudelaire said about generative art as in diffusion-based imagery.

If he didn't understand photography, he wouldn't understand the nuance there either.

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#336

Post by yunwal »

trillobyte wrote: post #292
td2 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But its normal, and good, that technologal progress creates, and destroys some jobs. Imagin a cheap, 100% reliable, self driving car would be released. Death from Traffic incidence fall by orders of magnitude Would you argue it didnt benefit humanity, because taxi/bus drivers are nolonger required

I'm actually a AI optimist. I think it'd be great to have everybody getting around in self driving vehicles. If all that AI brought resulted in just taxi/bus drivers being phased out of their jobs in a thoughtful way, then that would be more manageable at the society level. But we're talking about almost all sectors of the economy. If the magnitude of changes that OpenAI and Athropic believe will be delivered with in…

What I’m hearing is “it’s ok when other people lose their jobs…”

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#337

Post by modeless »

Taking a snapshot of the state of AI math right now and concluding that it will be net negative to human understanding and insight in the future is very short sighted. This statement will be used to promote ideas and actions that will ultimately be disastrous for our country.

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#338

Post by manlymuppet »

Somewhat unrelated: is it wrong to say mathematics is not art, and that there is always a right answer? I know that's not romantic, but maybe it's true.

Before LLMS, programming was something I might've said required creativity and human input to do properly. It's not that creativity or human input isn't valuable anymore, but AI has forced me to realize that coding is much a means to an end, and that all things considered, the end matters much more than the means.

If we can make important mathematics progress faster and better with LLMs, I think it's wise not to fret over an apparent loss of our humanity. Perhaps that's only a loss we want to have.

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#339

Post by pelican0 »

Given the existence of this technology now and the incentives of the AI companies, both of which are not going away; what's a good future here?

A major part of the complaint is that there's no conceptual understanding and building of new ideas coming out of the AI proofs, thus defeating the purpose of the original pursuit.

If in 2027 the AI models start producing, with every mathematics or science breakthrough they make, well-written documents tailored for human understanding, with intermediate concepts, expositions of failed-but-once-promising paths, etc. Would that be good alignment with the mathematics community?

Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics

#340

Post by iamkeithmccoy »

There's a reason mathematics is generally within liberal arts programs rather than science programs. Mathematics is the art of logic. Yes, sometimes mathematics becomes incredibly useful but most mathematics is never applied.

Compare that with computer science. Most of the work we do in software engineering is in service of an applicable output - software products that facilitate processes or bring in revenue. Turning up the dial on AI gets companies to these outputs faster.

Turning up AI on mathematics helps solve conjectures and can provide new insights. But it has a major misalignment with the purpose of mathematics which is largely intellectualism.

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