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Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

openai.com

441–450 of 1001 posts

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the near term handling the transition. Jobs will be lost, careers ended, people won’t be able to reskill quickly enough. At the same time AI is an enormous opportunity to uplift living standards, but nobody has the logistics of this figured out. We need to figure out how to restructure the global economy. How does UBI work internationally, if the AI companies are taking revenue in the US? What’s the tax base for i…

I think this too is a kind of denial. As in, while some are in denial about the usefulness of AI, others are in denial about whose living standards are actually going to be uplifted. And it's sad, really, because I think these two groups would make a great pairing if they could stop arguing against one another for a moment. They'll both be impacted about as much and probably have the same ultimate goals (to lead dign…

> others are in denial about whose living standards are actually going to be uplifted.

I don't know if it is fair to say they're in denial. For my part, I don't expect life to get much better for regular people (especially short term), but that doesn't mean we shouldn't work to try to make it happen.

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#442
post #358

Pretty cool. The impact of AI is getting undeniable, there aren’t many positions left to move the goalposts to at this stage, next they’ll have to be outside the stadium entirely. The sooner people can be broken out of their denial about all this the better, and we can start actually taking it seriously.

"AI" has limits in that it cannot invent knowledge, it can only distill and search for patterns in existing knowledge not sure how many will get this reference but "AI" for science and math is like super-shoes for runners at first we are blown away by the impossible improvements including sub-2-hour realworld marathon and every other PR/CR/WR is dialed down but then the improvements slow and reach a stall point becau…

How do humans "invent knowledge"? Is your argument that the answer to these questions already existed in the training set? Why didn't any human recognize that before?

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#443

Gary Marcus' has a good take on this: https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/openais-amazing-but-vastly... https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/two-critical-updates-re-as... Not that there isn't something interesting in here, but lets be clear that we don't have enough information to evaluate this properly. And as always with these labs, BS takes a lot more energy to refute than it does to spread.

"Gary Marcus' has a good take "

I think that is an oxymoron.

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#445

Gary Marcus' has a good take on this: https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/openais-amazing-but-vastly... https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/two-critical-updates-re-as... Not that there isn't something interesting in here, but lets be clear that we don't have enough information to evaluate this properly. And as always with these labs, BS takes a lot more energy to refute than it does to spread.

"Gary Marcus' has a good take " I think that is an oxymoron.

How so? His predictions were accurate so far

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the near term handling the transition. Jobs will be lost, careers ended, people won’t be able to reskill quickly enough. At the same time AI is an enormous opportunity to uplift living standards, but nobody has the logistics of this figured out. We need to figure out how to restructure the global economy. How does UBI work internationally, if the AI companies are taking revenue in the US? What’s the tax base for i…

I think this too is a kind of denial. As in, while some are in denial about the usefulness of AI, others are in denial about whose living standards are actually going to be uplifted. And it's sad, really, because I think these two groups would make a great pairing if they could stop arguing against one another for a moment. They'll both be impacted about as much and probably have the same ultimate goals (to lead dign…

Asking questions about policy and values and pushing to have those resolved in positive ways is about as far away from denial as you can get. It’s possibly the only useful thing an ordinary person can do.

What a lot of people want to do, and I’m not saying that you’re one of them, is to assume that a positive outcome is impossible and either do nothing or loudly yell that the world is ending. Neither is particularly useful.

Or, as I said above, others just deny that there’s anything to see here and try to get people to move along.

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#447
post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the near term handling the transition. Jobs will be lost, careers ended, people won’t be able to reskill quickly enough. At the same time AI is an enormous opportunity to uplift living standards, but nobody has the logistics of this figured out. We need to figure out how to restructure the global economy. How does UBI work internationally, if the AI companies are taking revenue in the US? What’s the tax base for i…

Isn't it obvious if AI automates your job away, the AI company is going to reap the economic value, which is going to be less than what you cost, while giving you a pittance as UBI? If you received its full value there wouldn't be any point in anybody replacing you with AI. The only way to win is to wield the AI.

Agreed, a LOT of UBI advocates gloss over the "B" in UBI. If AI increases human productivity overall, the only morally acceptable outcomes (imo) are that everyone's standard of living increases (or at least is the same without having to work) and wealth inequality decreases (if AI is doing ~all the work, there really isn't any sensible justification for some people having significantly more wealth than others). Frankly anything else seems like a recipe for massive social instability.

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#448
post #96

Replace philosophers for mathematicians and Douglas Adams was spot on again. Whilst current models can't 'intuit' and come up with conjectures, they can certainly disprove some of them very quickly through the kind of grind that humans can't do. I suppose there really are some mathematicians out there today, whose last few years of study, have just been up-ended by this. -- "Yes we are," insisted Majikthise. "We are…

>Whilst current models can't 'intuit That's how they are finding these solutions though, unless we are just going to label intuition as something only humans can do. Like a submarine being unable to swim or whatever that example is.

> "matrices"

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#449
post #400
post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your 'serious' proposal is unlimited global military bombing campaign on civilian infrastructure by the United States (which is currently losing a war using the same strategy) to 'solve safety' preemptively against a 20% number you just made up? And you accuse the 'other side' of 'suicidal apathy'?? You should put down the AI and do some self-reflection on how you came to hold these views.

If the thesis that "If anybody builds it, everyone dies" is true, or has any chance of becoming true, then it is the logical thing to do. As Geoffrey Hinton said, "If you want to know what it's like not to be the apex intelligence, ask a chicken."

It is not 'logical' to imagine a hypothetical doomsday scenario that justifies a preemptive nuclear war. (which is what the grandparent commenter's bio contemplates, 'nuke the datacenters' is their central credo).

Does it bother you that the people who are publicly cocksure that P(doom) is moments away are the same people that have profited most handsomely from that pronouncement?

That the 'humanists' that want to do 'altruism' for 'potential future humans' and are the same people that commit fraud and theft at a civilizational scale, then sell this 'intelligence' to any child-incinerating militaries with spare cash?

It's not wrong to want to do good, but if a system that is branded 'do (the most) good' commits great evils, you are morally and intellectually obligated to step back and reconsider how you are spending your time.

Also, I asked a chicken and a feral rock dove what it's like to be not be 'apex' and they burbled at me and kept eating millet and sunflower seeds.

Would you like me to follow up with them? I'm not sure what point you expected them to make.

Re: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

#450

Gary Marcus' has a good take on this: https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/openais-amazing-but-vastly... https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/two-critical-updates-re-as... Not that there isn't something interesting in here, but lets be clear that we don't have enough information to evaluate this properly. And as always with these labs, BS takes a lot more energy to refute than it does to spread.

It's worth reading Marcus' first line, for the naysayers and flaggers on this post:

> Astra, a new model that OpenAI is testing internally, is amazing. No denying that.

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