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> incredible what mental hoops people will jump through to disqualify AI! There are high peaks and troughs in AI buzz right now. Yes, on the one hand you've t

> incredible what mental hoops people will jump through to disqualify AI! There are high peaks and troughs in AI buzz right now. Yes, on the one hand you've the but-can-it-dance crowd. On the other hand, Terence Tao on GPT-4. I mean, I'm not weird for really expecting the story here either be about GPT4 helping Terence Tao on some difficult newfangled proof, or Tao talking about the math behind large language models. Instead this boils down to GPT4 even does the work of some of the smartest mathematicians in the world[1] 1: by parsing some web pages and PDFs for their meetings

knodi123 4y ago
> GPT4 even does the work of some of the smartest mathematicians in the world[1] > 1: by parsing some web pages and PDFs for their meetings Like that old joke about the guy who impressed people by claiming he had helped a brilliant mathematician solve a problem that had stumped him. And the punchline is something like "yeah, and it only took me a few minutes, all I had to do was replace his timing belt."
jacquesm 4y ago
The insight I think is that if smart mathematicians can use it to do drudge work they then have more time available to do smart maths.
- worrycue 4y ago
  I wonder why he doesn't have a secretary. Isn't he like one of the top mathematicians in the world? Why the heck are they having him do drudge work?
  - glitchc 4y ago
    Profs don't get secretaries. There's usually one admin assistant for the entire dept. and they're busy with applications for admissions, scholarships, grants, etc.
  - CamperBob2 4y ago
    Or grad students, for that matter. The notion that Tao should have to monkey around with Excel in person is just bonkers.
    - itsacomment 4y ago
      He'd be a seriously bad professor if he wasted the time of the people he was supposed to be teaching with copying badly formatted data for a talk.
- paulpauper 4y ago
  mathematicians do not do math all day. there is probably a point of diminishing returns where more doing more math is not useful.

knodi123 4y ago

> GPT4 even does the work of some of the smartest mathematicians in the world[1] > 1: by parsing some web pages and PDFs for their meetings Like that old joke about the guy who impressed people by claiming he had helped a brilliant mathematician solve a problem that had stumped him. And the punchline is something like "yeah, and it only took me a few minutes, all I had to do was replace his timing belt."

jacquesm 4y ago

The insight I think is that if smart mathematicians can use it to do drudge work they then have more time available to do smart maths.

worrycue 4y ago
I wonder why he doesn't have a secretary. Isn't he like one of the top mathematicians in the world? Why the heck are they having him do drudge work?
- glitchc 4y ago
  Profs don't get secretaries. There's usually one admin assistant for the entire dept. and they're busy with applications for admissions, scholarships, grants, etc.
- CamperBob2 4y ago
  Or grad students, for that matter. The notion that Tao should have to monkey around with Excel in person is just bonkers.
  - itsacomment 4y ago
    He'd be a seriously bad professor if he wasted the time of the people he was supposed to be teaching with copying badly formatted data for a talk.
paulpauper 4y ago
mathematicians do not do math all day. there is probably a point of diminishing returns where more doing more math is not useful.