3 ms·

"If computer scientists are ever able to program a kind of synthetic intuition, he says, it still won’t rival that of humans. " Famous last words, rather simil

"If computer scientists are ever able to program a kind of synthetic intuition, he says, it still won’t rival that of humans. " Famous last words, rather similar to the initial comments made by Lee Sedol before starting his famous game against AlphaGo. I don't think machine will ever replace mathematicians. However, I'm ready to bet that most Mathematicians in the coming 50 years who discovers anything useful will do so with CAM (computer assisted math) tools, in the same way no one designs any kind of building in 2020 without the help of a computer.

sukilot 6y ago
"If computer scientists are ever able to program a kind of synthetic knitting machine, he says, it still won’t rival that of humans. " If computer scientists are ever able to program a kind of running, he says, it still won’t rival that of humans. " It's amazing to see an "expert" saying these things unironically. The only thing impossible for a computer to event rival a human at are things that are judged subjectively by humans. And even in they, computers are winning. Youth today are learning their culture from computer programs and bots, ever more preferring algorithmically or mechanically generated content to real humans.
- bawolff 6y ago
  So all the important things? As a human, i care mostly about the things that i subjectively judge good. Pretty much by definition.
cmehdy 6y ago
Your assessment seems fair to me. Computers and humans aren't in a fight to win at something, they can just reinforce the lacks of the other. What might happen is that we gradually engineer a smaller and smaller comparative gap between computers and humans by ingesting "human-stuff", and thus make it seem like humans become proportionally irrelevant in the system. But after AlphaGo beat the best players at the game, did people entirely stop playing it? No, in fact they started analyzing the moves and trying to extract ways to improve themselves too. And people around the world don't seem to have particularly given up playing Go either. Similarly with Chess, nobody's even thinking for a second that a computer couldn't beat Magnus consistently, yet we didn't throw our hands in the air and move on from Chess altogether. Maths is not just this abstract thing that some people do, it's something people actively enjoy. If we get computers to stump everyone by bringing something forward that "works" yet we can't grasp, it will only spark more interest in the field. Not everyone is willing to adapt to that attitude if they don't have it yet though.
- Noos 6y ago
  Um, they have moved on from chess. The problem is you are only looking at the highly skilled people. Go look at everyone else, and you'll see chess is pretty much an expert's sport now. Casuals are more or less gone from modern life.
  - chongli 6y ago
    It’s doing pretty well as a spectator’s sport. Look at Hikaru Nakamura’s stream on a typical night. Thousands of viewers. He recently joined a major esports team (TSM). His finals match against Magnus Carlsen was up over 30k viewers at some points. Now how many of those viewers play chess themselves? Quite a few, I think. Chess.com and Lichess are booming. Tons of low rated players playing all the time. Another big, emerging phenomenon is Pogchamps, an online invitational chess tournament featuring top streamers of other games. These streamers tend to be very low rated in chess and they receive coaching from IMs and GMs such as the aforementioned Hikaru. In addition to the excitement around the tournament itself, a lot of people tune in to watch their favourite streamers get coached by the pros. It can be very entertaining to see a normally cocky streamer get humbled in chess.

sukilot 6y ago

"If computer scientists are ever able to program a kind of synthetic knitting machine, he says, it still won’t rival that of humans. " If computer scientists are ever able to program a kind of running, he says, it still won’t rival that of humans. " It's amazing to see an "expert" saying these things unironically. The only thing impossible for a computer to event rival a human at are things that are judged subjectively by humans. And even in they, computers are winning. Youth today are learning their culture from computer programs and bots, ever more preferring algorithmically or mechanically generated content to real humans.

bawolff 6y ago
So all the important things? As a human, i care mostly about the things that i subjectively judge good. Pretty much by definition.

cmehdy 6y ago

Your assessment seems fair to me. Computers and humans aren't in a fight to win at something, they can just reinforce the lacks of the other. What might happen is that we gradually engineer a smaller and smaller comparative gap between computers and humans by ingesting "human-stuff", and thus make it seem like humans become proportionally irrelevant in the system. But after AlphaGo beat the best players at the game, did people entirely stop playing it? No, in fact they started analyzing the moves and trying to extract ways to improve themselves too. And people around the world don't seem to have particularly given up playing Go either. Similarly with Chess, nobody's even thinking for a second that a computer couldn't beat Magnus consistently, yet we didn't throw our hands in the air and move on from Chess altogether. Maths is not just this abstract thing that some people do, it's something people actively enjoy. If we get computers to stump everyone by bringing something forward that "works" yet we can't grasp, it will only spark more interest in the field. Not everyone is willing to adapt to that attitude if they don't have it yet though.

Noos 6y ago
Um, they have moved on from chess. The problem is you are only looking at the highly skilled people. Go look at everyone else, and you'll see chess is pretty much an expert's sport now. Casuals are more or less gone from modern life.
- chongli 6y ago
  It’s doing pretty well as a spectator’s sport. Look at Hikaru Nakamura’s stream on a typical night. Thousands of viewers. He recently joined a major esports team (TSM). His finals match against Magnus Carlsen was up over 30k viewers at some points. Now how many of those viewers play chess themselves? Quite a few, I think. Chess.com and Lichess are booming. Tons of low rated players playing all the time. Another big, emerging phenomenon is Pogchamps, an online invitational chess tournament featuring top streamers of other games. These streamers tend to be very low rated in chess and they receive coaching from IMs and GMs such as the aforementioned Hikaru. In addition to the excitement around the tournament itself, a lot of people tune in to watch their favourite streamers get coached by the pros. It can be very entertaining to see a normally cocky streamer get humbled in chess.