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I'm not sure i understand the wild hype here in this thread then. Seems exactly like the tests at my company where even frontier models are revealed to be very

I'm not sure i understand the wild hype here in this thread then. Seems exactly like the tests at my company where even frontier models are revealed to be very expensive rubber ducks, but completely fails with non experts or anything novel or math heavy. Ie. they mirror the intellect of the user but give you big dopamine hits that'll lead you astray.

Davidzheng 9mo ago
The proof is ai generated?
- MyFirstSass 9mo ago
  Eh? The text reads: "Aristotle integrates three main components: a Lean proof search system, an informal reasoning system that generates and formalizes lemmas, and a dedicated geometry solver" Not saying it's not an amazing setup, i just don't understand the word "AI" being used like this when it's the setup / system that's brilliant in conjunction with absolute experts.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - kortex 9mo ago
    That's literally AI though. AI has been around formally since 1956. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmouth_workshop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmouth_workshop AI != AGI != neural networks != LLMs But Tao did mention ChatGPT so i believe LLMs were involved at least partially.
markusde 9mo ago
Yes, the contributions of the people promoting the AI should be considered, as well as the people who designed the Lean libraries used in-the-loop while the AI was writing the solution. Any talk of "AGI" is, as always, ridiculous. But speaking as a specialist in theorem proving, this result is pretty impressive! It would have likely taken me a lot longer to formalize this result even if it was in my area of specialty.
- falcor84 9mo ago
  > Any talk of "AGI" is, as always, ridiculous. How did you arrive at "ridiculous"? What we're seeing here is incredible progress over what we had a year ago. Even ARC-AGI-2 is now at over 50%. Given that this sort of process is also being applied to AI development itself, it's really not clear to me that humans would be a valuable component in knowledge work for much longer.
  - feastingonslop 9mo ago
    Excellent! Humans can then spend their time on other activities, rather than get bogged down in the mundane.
    - navels 9mo ago
      Other activites such as the sublime pursuit of truth and beauty . . . aka mathematics ;-)
    - latexr 9mo ago
      Not going to happen as long as the society we live in has this big of a hard on for capitalism and working yourself to the bone is seen as a virtue. Every time there’s a productivity boost, the newly gained free time is immediately consumed by more work. It’s a sick version of Parkinson’s law where work is infinite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - catlifeonmars 9mo ago
    “Much longer” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
    - markusde 9mo ago
      As is "even if it was in my area of specialty". I would not be able to do this proof, I can tell you that much.
HDThoreaun 9mo ago
"the more interesting capability revealed by these events is the ability to rapidly write and rewrite new versions of a text as needed, even if one was not the original author of the argument." From the Tao thread. The ability to quickly iterate on research is a big change because "This is sharp contrast to existing practice where....large-scale reworking of the paper often avoided due both to the work required and the large possibility of introducing new errors."
SecretDreams 9mo ago
> Ie. they mirror the intellect of the user but give you big dopamine hits that'll lead you astray. This hits so true to home. Just today in my field a manager without expertise in a topic gave me an AI solution to something I am an expertise in. The AI was very plainly and painfully wrong, but it comes down to the user prompting really poorly. When I gave a el formulated prompt to the same topic, I got the correct answer on the first go.
anthem2025 9mo ago
[dead]
jacquesm 9mo ago
This accurately mirrors my experience. It never - so far - has happened that the AI brought any novel insight at the level that I would see as an original idea. Presumably the case of TFA is different but the normal interaction is that that the solution to whatever you are trying to solve is a millimeter away from your understanding and the AI won't bridge that gap until you do it yourself and then it will usually prove to you that was obvious. If it was so obvious then it probably should have made the suggestion... Recent case: I have a bar with a number of weights supported on either end: |---+-+-//-+-+---| What order and/or arrangement or of removing the weights would cause the least shift in center-of-mass? There is a non-obvious trick that you can pull here to reduce the shift considerably and I was curious if the AI would spot it or not but even after lots of prompting it just circled around the obvious solutions rather than to make a leap outside of that box and come up with a solution that is better in every case. I wonder what the cause of that kind of blindness is.
- jiggawatts 9mo ago
  That problem is not clearly stated, so if you’re pasting that into an AI verbatim you won’t get the answer you’re looking for. My guess is: first move the weights to the middle, and only then remove them. However “weights” and “bar” might confuse both machines and people into thinking that this is related to weight lifting, where there’s two stops on the bar preventing the weights from being moved to the middle.
  - jacquesm 9mo ago
    The problem is stated clearly enough that humans that we ask the question of will sooner or later see that there is an optimum and that that optimum relies on understanding. And no, the problem is not 'not clearly stated'. It is complete as it is and you are wrong about your guess. And if machines and people think this is related to weight lifting then they're free to ask follow up questions. But even in the weight lifting case the answer is the same.
    - red75prime 9mo ago
      Illusion of transparency. You are imagining yourself asking this question, while standing in the gym and looking at the bar (or something like this). I, for example, have no idea how the weights are attached and which removal actions are allowed. Yeah, LLMs have a tendency to run with some interpretation of a question without asking follow-up questions. Probably, it's a consequence of RLHFing them in that way.
krzat 9mo ago
In other words, LLMs work best when *you are absolutely right" and "this is a very insightful question" are actually true.
encyclopedism 9mo ago
Lots of users seem to think LLM's think and reason so this sounds wonderful. A mechanical process isn't thinking, certainly it does NOT mirror human thinking. The processes being altogether different.
EA-3167 9mo ago
Do you have any idea how many people here have paychecks that depend on the hype, or hope to be in that position? They were the same way for Crypto until it stopped being part of the get-rich-quick dream.

Davidzheng 9mo ago

The proof is ai generated?

MyFirstSass 9mo ago
Eh? The text reads: "Aristotle integrates three main components: a Lean proof search system, an informal reasoning system that generates and formalizes lemmas, and a dedicated geometry solver" Not saying it's not an amazing setup, i just don't understand the word "AI" being used like this when it's the setup / system that's brilliant in conjunction with absolute experts.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- kortex 9mo ago
  That's literally AI though. AI has been around formally since 1956. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmouth_workshop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmouth_workshop AI != AGI != neural networks != LLMs But Tao did mention ChatGPT so i believe LLMs were involved at least partially.

markusde 9mo ago

Yes, the contributions of the people promoting the AI should be considered, as well as the people who designed the Lean libraries used in-the-loop while the AI was writing the solution. Any talk of "AGI" is, as always, ridiculous. But speaking as a specialist in theorem proving, this result is pretty impressive! It would have likely taken me a lot longer to formalize this result even if it was in my area of specialty.

falcor84 9mo ago
> Any talk of "AGI" is, as always, ridiculous. How did you arrive at "ridiculous"? What we're seeing here is incredible progress over what we had a year ago. Even ARC-AGI-2 is now at over 50%. Given that this sort of process is also being applied to AI development itself, it's really not clear to me that humans would be a valuable component in knowledge work for much longer.
- feastingonslop 9mo ago
  Excellent! Humans can then spend their time on other activities, rather than get bogged down in the mundane.
  - navels 9mo ago
    Other activites such as the sublime pursuit of truth and beauty . . . aka mathematics ;-)
  - latexr 9mo ago
    Not going to happen as long as the society we live in has this big of a hard on for capitalism and working yourself to the bone is seen as a virtue. Every time there’s a productivity boost, the newly gained free time is immediately consumed by more work. It’s a sick version of Parkinson’s law where work is infinite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- catlifeonmars 9mo ago
  “Much longer” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
  - markusde 9mo ago
    As is "even if it was in my area of specialty". I would not be able to do this proof, I can tell you that much.

HDThoreaun 9mo ago

"the more interesting capability revealed by these events is the ability to rapidly write and rewrite new versions of a text as needed, even if one was not the original author of the argument." From the Tao thread. The ability to quickly iterate on research is a big change because "This is sharp contrast to existing practice where....large-scale reworking of the paper often avoided due both to the work required and the large possibility of introducing new errors."

SecretDreams 9mo ago

> Ie. they mirror the intellect of the user but give you big dopamine hits that'll lead you astray. This hits so true to home. Just today in my field a manager without expertise in a topic gave me an AI solution to something I am an expertise in. The AI was very plainly and painfully wrong, but it comes down to the user prompting really poorly. When I gave a el formulated prompt to the same topic, I got the correct answer on the first go.

anthem2025 9mo ago

[dead]

jacquesm 9mo ago

This accurately mirrors my experience. It never - so far - has happened that the AI brought any novel insight at the level that I would see as an original idea. Presumably the case of TFA is different but the normal interaction is that that the solution to whatever you are trying to solve is a millimeter away from your understanding and the AI won't bridge that gap until you do it yourself and then it will usually prove to you that was obvious. If it was so obvious then it probably should have made the suggestion... Recent case: I have a bar with a number of weights supported on either end: |---+-+-//-+-+---| What order and/or arrangement or of removing the weights would cause the least shift in center-of-mass? There is a non-obvious trick that you can pull here to reduce the shift considerably and I was curious if the AI would spot it or not but even after lots of prompting it just circled around the obvious solutions rather than to make a leap outside of that box and come up with a solution that is better in every case. I wonder what the cause of that kind of blindness is.

jiggawatts 9mo ago
That problem is not clearly stated, so if you’re pasting that into an AI verbatim you won’t get the answer you’re looking for. My guess is: first move the weights to the middle, and only then remove them. However “weights” and “bar” might confuse both machines and people into thinking that this is related to weight lifting, where there’s two stops on the bar preventing the weights from being moved to the middle.
- jacquesm 9mo ago
  The problem is stated clearly enough that humans that we ask the question of will sooner or later see that there is an optimum and that that optimum relies on understanding. And no, the problem is not 'not clearly stated'. It is complete as it is and you are wrong about your guess. And if machines and people think this is related to weight lifting then they're free to ask follow up questions. But even in the weight lifting case the answer is the same.
  - red75prime 9mo ago
    Illusion of transparency. You are imagining yourself asking this question, while standing in the gym and looking at the bar (or something like this). I, for example, have no idea how the weights are attached and which removal actions are allowed. Yeah, LLMs have a tendency to run with some interpretation of a question without asking follow-up questions. Probably, it's a consequence of RLHFing them in that way.

krzat 9mo ago

In other words, LLMs work best when *you are absolutely right" and "this is a very insightful question" are actually true.

encyclopedism 9mo ago

Lots of users seem to think LLM's think and reason so this sounds wonderful. A mechanical process isn't thinking, certainly it does NOT mirror human thinking. The processes being altogether different.

EA-3167 9mo ago

Do you have any idea how many people here have paychecks that depend on the hype, or hope to be in that position? They were the same way for Crypto until it stopped being part of the get-rich-quick dream.