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None of it is really from logical thought. The rationalizations don't make any sense, but they haven't for a while. It's an emotional response. Honestly, It's t

None of it is really from logical thought. The rationalizations don't make any sense, but they haven't for a while. It's an emotional response. Honestly, It's to be expected.

threethirtytwo 6mo ago
It's because HN is not really full of smart people. It's full of people who think they're smart and take pride in that idea that they're pretty intelligent. ChatGPT equalizes intelligence. And that is an attack on their identity. It also exposes their ACTUAL intelligence which is to say most of HN is not too smart.
- bsza 6mo ago
  > ChatGPT equalizes intelligence Yes, I love living in communism too. Imagine if you had to pay money for it or something. The wealthiest people would get unrestricted access to intelligence while the poor none. And the people in the middle would eventually find themselves unable to function without a product they can no longer afford. Chilling, huh? Good thing humans are known for sharing in the benefits of technological progress equally. /s
  - simianwords 6mo ago
    what? the post is literally titled "Amateur armed with ChatGPT solves an Erdős problem". stop spreading FUD about unaffordability
    - bsza 6mo ago
      They used ChatGPT Pro to solve it. Over 50% of people in the world couldn't afford ChatGPT Pro ($200/mo) even if they spent more than half of their income on it. [1] What was that about "spreading FUD about unaffordability"? [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-living-with-less-than-upper-middle-income-poverty-line https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-living-with-less-th...
      - sunaookami 6mo ago
        They didn't buy ChatGPT Pro themselves. You could've done the same as the students in the article and get a free subscription if you were interested in this instead of trolling.
        bsza 6mo ago
        > You could've done the same Please show me the steps to get a $200 subscription for free that works 100% of the time regardless of who you are. I'm listening.
        simianwords 6mo ago
        ChatGPT flattened the difference between top .0001 percentile mathematician and an amateur. This is the definition of making intelligence more available. You are exaggerating the situation by essentially claiming since some people can’t afford 200 dollars this means ChatGPT is not democratising intelligence. It’s a bit strange to claim this because according to you it only becomes affordable when maximal number of people can afford it. It’s a bit childish. Directionally it is democratising. Are more people able to afford higher level intelligence? Yes.
        bsza 6mo ago
        > ChatGPT flattened the difference between top .0001 percentile mathematician and an amateur It flattened the difference between a top epsilon percentile mathematician and an amateur with money. It didn't flatten the difference between an amateur with a little money and an amateur with a lot of money. It widened it. That's the part I'm scared about. You are shrugging this off because it currently isn't that expensive. But we're talking about the massively subsidized price here, which is bound to get orders of magnitude higher when the bubble pops. Models are also likely to get much better. If it gets to a point where the only way to obtain exceptionally high intelligence is with an exceptionally high net worth and vice versa, how is that going to democratize anything?
        6mo ago
  - Jtarii 6mo ago
    Huh? Before ChatGPT it costs ~$100,000 to aquire intelligence good enough to solve this Erdos problem, now it costs ~$200. I'm really confused at what you are even taking an issue with.
    - threethirtytwo 6mo ago
      His core issue is jealousy and fear. I don't think these types of people are at the top of the intelligence curve (more closer to bottom) but that is orthogonal to my point. What I'm saying is his personality archetype makes him think (keyword) he's at the top of the intelligence curve and an equalization means, personally to him, that he's losing his edge. More specific to HN is the archetype of: "I have spent years honing my craft as a expert programmer, my identity is predicated on being an expert programmer in which high intelligence is causal and associated positively with my identity" That's why ironically most of HN was completely wrong about AI. They were wrong about driverless cars, they claimed vibe coding was trash. It's the people who think (keyword) their stupid/average (aka general public) who got it right... because perceptually they stand to gain from the equalization. Anyway.. this fear and jealousy is not something most humans can admit to themselves. Nobody will actually be able to realize that these emotions drive there thinking. They have to lie to themselves and rationalize a different reality. That's why you get absurdist takes like this. To everyone reading. It is obviously that chatGPT does not equalize intelligence to the point of 100%. That statement is obviously not saying that. Everyone knows this. You want proof?: Look at the declaration of independence... without getting to pedantic: "All Men are created equal" is not saying all Males are 100% equal. Everyone knows this. First off no one is 100% equal.. and second the statement in a modern context is obviously not referring to only men. It is referring to women&men and clearly men and women are nowhere near equal. So if you all know this about the declaration of independence... how can you not see the same nuance for: "ChatGPT equalizes intelligence."? First ask yourself... do you think you're smart? If you do, then the self delusion I just described is likely happening with you.
- missingdays 6mo ago
  > ChatGPT equalizes intelligence Citation needed
  - simianwords 6mo ago
    how can you ask this question with on a post titled "Amateur armed with ChatGPT solves an Erdős problem"???? are you looking for some randomised control trial? omg
    - JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
      Idk, going out on a limb and guessing the folks who hang out on erdosproblems.com aren’t run-of-the-mill dumbasses. The prompt, if you look at it, is actually quite clever. Not as clever as the proof. But far from the equalization OP posits.
      - simianwords 6mo ago
        Directionally it is correct - an amateur wouldn’t be able to do this without ChatGPT. You can’t expect maximal democratisation
      - threethirtytwo 6mo ago
        Why be such an absolutist. How about I caveat it the way you want: AI equalizes intelligence in the sense that it closes the gap. Not perfectly, not infinitely, but directionally. The distribution compresses. The floor rises faster than the ceiling, so people who used to be far apart end up operating much closer together. You can already see it in the Erdős example. The person who wrote that prompt wasn’t some random idiot. It took real cleverness to even set it up that way. But the fact that they could get that far, with assistance, is exactly the point. The distance between “amateur” and “expert” shrinks when the tool fills in large parts of the path. Now extend that forward. Today it’s one clever person, one problem, one careful interaction. As the tooling improves, that same pattern scales. Better reasoning, better search, better guidance. The amount of lift the tool provides increases, which means the gap continues to narrow. All the supposed “counterpoints” people bring up are already implied in the claim. “Equalize” here obviously means moving closer to equality. Is it NOT obvious that LLMs don't actually equalize intelligence to a level of 100%? Do I actually need to spell that out? If there was nothing at stake, I wouldn't need to. But instead people latch onto the most absurd version possible, knock that down, and act like they’ve said something meaningful. It’s the same mindset as that guy demanding a formal paper or citation for an observation you can see unfolding in real time. Not because it’s unclear, but because engaging with the actual claim is uncomfortable. It’s easier to distort it into something extreme and dismiss it than to admit the gap is closing.

None of it is really from logical thought. The rationalizations don't make any sense, but they haven't for a while. It's an emotional response. Honestly, It's to be expected.

threethirtytwo 6mo ago

It's because HN is not really full of smart people. It's full of people who think they're smart and take pride in that idea that they're pretty intelligent. ChatGPT equalizes intelligence. And that is an attack on their identity. It also exposes their ACTUAL intelligence which is to say most of HN is not too smart.

bsza 6mo ago
> ChatGPT equalizes intelligence Yes, I love living in communism too. Imagine if you had to pay money for it or something. The wealthiest people would get unrestricted access to intelligence while the poor none. And the people in the middle would eventually find themselves unable to function without a product they can no longer afford. Chilling, huh? Good thing humans are known for sharing in the benefits of technological progress equally. /s
- simianwords 6mo ago
  what? the post is literally titled "Amateur armed with ChatGPT solves an Erdős problem". stop spreading FUD about unaffordability
  - bsza 6mo ago
    They used ChatGPT Pro to solve it. Over 50% of people in the world couldn't afford ChatGPT Pro ($200/mo) even if they spent more than half of their income on it. [1] What was that about "spreading FUD about unaffordability"? [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-living-with-less-than-upper-middle-income-poverty-line https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-living-with-less-th...
    - sunaookami 6mo ago
      They didn't buy ChatGPT Pro themselves. You could've done the same as the students in the article and get a free subscription if you were interested in this instead of trolling.
      - bsza 6mo ago
        > You could've done the same Please show me the steps to get a $200 subscription for free that works 100% of the time regardless of who you are. I'm listening.
        simianwords 6mo ago
        ChatGPT flattened the difference between top .0001 percentile mathematician and an amateur. This is the definition of making intelligence more available. You are exaggerating the situation by essentially claiming since some people can’t afford 200 dollars this means ChatGPT is not democratising intelligence. It’s a bit strange to claim this because according to you it only becomes affordable when maximal number of people can afford it. It’s a bit childish. Directionally it is democratising. Are more people able to afford higher level intelligence? Yes.
        bsza 6mo ago
        > ChatGPT flattened the difference between top .0001 percentile mathematician and an amateur It flattened the difference between a top epsilon percentile mathematician and an amateur with money. It didn't flatten the difference between an amateur with a little money and an amateur with a lot of money. It widened it. That's the part I'm scared about. You are shrugging this off because it currently isn't that expensive. But we're talking about the massively subsidized price here, which is bound to get orders of magnitude higher when the bubble pops. Models are also likely to get much better. If it gets to a point where the only way to obtain exceptionally high intelligence is with an exceptionally high net worth and vice versa, how is that going to democratize anything?
        6mo ago
- Jtarii 6mo ago
  Huh? Before ChatGPT it costs ~$100,000 to aquire intelligence good enough to solve this Erdos problem, now it costs ~$200. I'm really confused at what you are even taking an issue with.
  - threethirtytwo 6mo ago
    His core issue is jealousy and fear. I don't think these types of people are at the top of the intelligence curve (more closer to bottom) but that is orthogonal to my point. What I'm saying is his personality archetype makes him think (keyword) he's at the top of the intelligence curve and an equalization means, personally to him, that he's losing his edge. More specific to HN is the archetype of: "I have spent years honing my craft as a expert programmer, my identity is predicated on being an expert programmer in which high intelligence is causal and associated positively with my identity" That's why ironically most of HN was completely wrong about AI. They were wrong about driverless cars, they claimed vibe coding was trash. It's the people who think (keyword) their stupid/average (aka general public) who got it right... because perceptually they stand to gain from the equalization. Anyway.. this fear and jealousy is not something most humans can admit to themselves. Nobody will actually be able to realize that these emotions drive there thinking. They have to lie to themselves and rationalize a different reality. That's why you get absurdist takes like this. To everyone reading. It is obviously that chatGPT does not equalize intelligence to the point of 100%. That statement is obviously not saying that. Everyone knows this. You want proof?: Look at the declaration of independence... without getting to pedantic: "All Men are created equal" is not saying all Males are 100% equal. Everyone knows this. First off no one is 100% equal.. and second the statement in a modern context is obviously not referring to only men. It is referring to women&men and clearly men and women are nowhere near equal. So if you all know this about the declaration of independence... how can you not see the same nuance for: "ChatGPT equalizes intelligence."? First ask yourself... do you think you're smart? If you do, then the self delusion I just described is likely happening with you.
missingdays 6mo ago
> ChatGPT equalizes intelligence Citation needed
- simianwords 6mo ago
  how can you ask this question with on a post titled "Amateur armed with ChatGPT solves an Erdős problem"???? are you looking for some randomised control trial? omg
  - JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
    Idk, going out on a limb and guessing the folks who hang out on erdosproblems.com aren’t run-of-the-mill dumbasses. The prompt, if you look at it, is actually quite clever. Not as clever as the proof. But far from the equalization OP posits.
    - simianwords 6mo ago
      Directionally it is correct - an amateur wouldn’t be able to do this without ChatGPT. You can’t expect maximal democratisation
    - threethirtytwo 6mo ago
      Why be such an absolutist. How about I caveat it the way you want: AI equalizes intelligence in the sense that it closes the gap. Not perfectly, not infinitely, but directionally. The distribution compresses. The floor rises faster than the ceiling, so people who used to be far apart end up operating much closer together. You can already see it in the Erdős example. The person who wrote that prompt wasn’t some random idiot. It took real cleverness to even set it up that way. But the fact that they could get that far, with assistance, is exactly the point. The distance between “amateur” and “expert” shrinks when the tool fills in large parts of the path. Now extend that forward. Today it’s one clever person, one problem, one careful interaction. As the tooling improves, that same pattern scales. Better reasoning, better search, better guidance. The amount of lift the tool provides increases, which means the gap continues to narrow. All the supposed “counterpoints” people bring up are already implied in the claim. “Equalize” here obviously means moving closer to equality. Is it NOT obvious that LLMs don't actually equalize intelligence to a level of 100%? Do I actually need to spell that out? If there was nothing at stake, I wouldn't need to. But instead people latch onto the most absurd version possible, knock that down, and act like they’ve said something meaningful. It’s the same mindset as that guy demanding a formal paper or citation for an observation you can see unfolding in real time. Not because it’s unclear, but because engaging with the actual claim is uncomfortable. It’s easier to distort it into something extreme and dismiss it than to admit the gap is closing.