Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I believe I did, Bob" lives rent free, every time someone tells another person to fuck themselves using technology. Thank You!
lmao, thank you, i think
Please consider making more comics. You have it.
A misalignment of AI in mathematics
621–630 of 648 posts
Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#622Tao's calls for respect for provenance in mathematics publication are laudable but most likely naive given the closed nature of frontier model training data curation. Anthropic and OpenAI may react with a symbolic and short-lived olive branch, yet provenance is a larger issue that has impacted other fields beyond mathematics. While traditional respect for lineage in mathematics is of value to the academy, industry an…
thank you for this commentary, as a violinist / software engineer / "computer scientist" / "mathematician" i can see that studying and doing math will still remain a thing that humans have to do to train their own brains to think and to form better neuronal connections. We may not get paid to do it anymore but it will still be important for our own development for the same reasons orchestras and bands still exist in elementary schools and beyond (at least in many parts of the US).
Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#623Earlier quoted context omitted.
These mathematicians dedicated their life to math and were working for a long time to achieve the pinnacle of their careers. OpenAI just burned millions of dollars over a weekend after hearing that someone else was close to solving the problems. Their interest was in their AI system more than the actual math problems. Don’t you see how that’s different?
I see how it can be devastating to their ego, but no, I don't see a particular difference in a company spending money for clout vs. a person spending time for clout. The underlying motivation is the same.
Do you really think people dedicate their life to mathematics for clout?
If clout was the goal I don’t think becoming a lifelong mathematics academic would be the first step
Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#624Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it's worth anything: I have a PhD in (theoretical) mathematics and I entirely stand by stabbles' comment. There is a real, undeniable possibility of AI becoming better at mathematics in the same way that it became better at chess and Go, and in such a scenario, one may expect the community's response to be comparable.
Stockfish isn't owned by a club of three trillionaires. It does not cost $15 million to achieve a result in Stockfish. Stockfish does not steal research or scoop researchers. The concentration of computing resources and capital should be examined by the math community.
This is the real problem. We're looking at a future where those who control AI have an insurmountable advantage in everything. They can control the amount of intelligence the masses have access to -- for their own safety, of course -- and they will never, ever be able to close the gap.
Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#625Earlier 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…
> 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.
Would you expect Fields medalists to cure cancer if you moved them from the math department to a medical research lab? This is precisely the fallacy that the frontier labs are counting on to inflate their valuation as their IPO approaches. They want to use headline-grabbing problems in pure maths to make their models look "smart" in the public eye. But what does "smartness" in mathematics really mean in terms of economic value? It is not at all obvious whether success in abstract mathematics should translate to successes and, more importantly, profitability, in more grounded endeavors.
Look at OpenAI's job postings (https://openai.com/careers/search/). Those roles involve far more pedestrian yet profitable duties than research mathematics. So why isn't OpenAI automating them with their vaunted models? Success in one field, no matter how "difficult", does not predict results in another field.
Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#626Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Playing stockfish is like playing tennis against the wall (for untitled players at least). It's the same for Magnus Carlsen. Even with Queen odds, Stockfish is literally unbeatable for the best players in the world. It's just too strong at evaluating all kinds of random tangent moves (and ensuing positional advantage) which no human player can possibly pay attention due to the time required. Stockfish vs any human…
No worries, I know stockfish is unbeatable by humans. But sometimes, these GMs can flag it, which counts as a win (especially when it's proxied by a cheater). Sometimes they can also explain the idea that cost them the game, so they've learned something maybe. Whereas us scrubs literally cannot do anything at all for reasons completely beyond our understanding.
> Whereas us scrubs literally cannot do anything at all for reasons completely beyond our understanding
Computer moves are typically much more concrete than human moves: a human will play based on pattern matching ("intuition") and can only make explicit calculation of a small fraction of possibilities, after which decisions are guided by guesswork. The computers are unbeatable in practice because they can calculate concretely in seconds what might take an expert human long intensive study to notice, and they don't make the same kinds of oversights humans can make.
But if you stop and explore a particular position for an extended time, and if you have an intermediate level of chess skill, you too can probably often (usually?) figure out why it's doing something. Sometimes understanding the computer's reasons takes searching multiple branches of a tree several unlikely looking moves deep, but the collection of threats the computer was preemptively thwarting, traps it was setting, etc. are comprehensible to humans with enough effort, especially in games between the computer and a human.
The frustrating thing about playing against the computer is that it notices and thwarts every plan you might come up with, before you make up the plan yourself, and it doesn't make (human-apparent) mistakes, so the game ends up feeling hopeless. Nothing you try works on it, and if your idea is even slightly inaccurate it will be exploited.
Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#627Tao'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.
[dead]
Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#628Contrarian take: I think the ability of AI to produce valid mathematical proofs (even inscrutable ones) is absolutely fantastic. Mathematics as a profession does not have a monopoly over math itself any more than professional pianists have a monopoly on who plays piano, when they play, and how. I have sympathy for any jobs that might be affected (much as my own job has become more tenuous in software engineering). An…
Yes. Mathematicians don't really get logic, and Tao is no exception.
Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#629Earlier quoted context omitted.
> primarily as a marketing exercise Like the mathematicians working on famous problems in private until they could claim full credit for something interesting wasn't also a marketing exercise for their own careers. The commercial value (or lack thereof) of a proof doesn't depend on whether it was done by a human or a machine.
These mathematicians dedicated their life to math and were working for a long time to achieve the pinnacle of their careers. OpenAI just burned millions of dollars over a weekend after hearing that someone else was close to solving the problems. Their interest was in their AI system more than the actual math problems. Don’t you see how that’s different?
Yeah bro, same for probably the majority of this site that write software for a living and/or hobby.
Re: A misalignment of AI in mathematics
#630I don't know, people. We still really don't know how OpenAI or others are producing these results. It's all very hand wavy and trust-me-bro. How much money/time/compute have they really thrown at these problems? How much human involvement was there? What LLM did they even use? How much regular software was involved? They have given answers to some of those questions but no proof that that's actually what they did. I…
A very important point! In Tristan (NYU prof)’s write up he noted evidence of the OpenAI mathematician team doing a lot of correction and guidance along the way. We are never told about this with openness and clarity. At a minimum, complete disclosure and honesty is needed by the companies and about the precise role of their staff members.