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> it can never prove the code is working correctly (see halting problem). The halting problem doesn't say anything about whether a program could prove things a
by roywiggins 4y ago
> it can never prove the code is working correctly (see halting problem).
The halting problem doesn't say anything about whether a program could prove things about another program, just that it can't do it for all programs.
Lots of programs obviously do or don't halt, and you can prove it in a couple lines ("there's an infinite loop here and every execution will enter it" or "all the loops are bounded by constants" etc). There's nothing stopping an AI from noticing things like that just as much as humans can. For more complex programs it obviously gets much harder, but it's very hard for humans to prove things about programs too!
- srcreigh 4y agoThe AI can also read our proofs
- beders 4y agoNo it doesn't, but that is essentially what a coding AI would have to do for correctness. Unless we are not talking about correctness. And we are not talking about trivial cases either.
- roywiggins 4y agoAn AI could correctly prove some things about some programs, and for the rest of them shrug and say it doesn't know.