6 ms·

Why would it excite you, rather than terrifying you? The better LLMs get at math, the closer the expertise you spent your whole life building is to being worthl

Why would it excite you, rather than terrifying you? The better LLMs get at math, the closer the expertise you spent your whole life building is to being worthless. Along with all the rest of what humans find meaningful and fulfilling.

CamperBob2 5mo ago
What's happening is the verbal/linguistic equivalent of the invention of calculus. No intellectual field will ever be the same again. Who wouldn't find that exciting, and want to experience it?
- rogerrogerr 5mo ago
  People who enjoy thinking. Ya know, the "intellectual" part.
  - aroman 5mo ago
    This is the beginning of thinking, not the end...
    - windexh8er 5mo ago
      It depends. If you are in a disadvantaged class it is very likely going to err towards a dismal result long term. However if you are a privileged intellectual these models can accelerate and expand your horizon. It isn't the end, surely. It is, however, both impressive and depressive simultaneously and that perspective only depends on your point of view.
    - doctorwho42 5mo ago
      But when the bar to entry is beyond expertise in a field or subfield, how does an individual ever hope to attain an unexplored space to explore? It may be the beginning of thinking, but to many who view things on a longer timeline. It starts to look like it will breakdown the frameworks of which are required to get to that position. Otherwise, you just end up retreading explored ground. This removing the joy of discovery from any humans hand/mind.
      - 8n4vidtmkvmk 5mo ago
        Recently I've found my mind reawaken. It's about asking good questions now. The models can find the answers, but you have to know what to ask. Sometimes the model is wrong and you have to challenge it to find an alternative. Being able to explore problem spaces quickly is interesting.
  - mlcrypto 5mo ago
    The so called "progressives" prove that they were the same ones crying after the printing press, automobile, calculator, washing machine, etc
    - ted_dunning 5mo ago
      You made up a group in the past and you made up things they say and then draw the inference that a different group in the present is somehow morally disadvantaged by obvious inference. Perhaps your name-calling is not actually as logically grounded as you think. It definitely seems to depend on unfounded leaps.
  - fartfeatures 5mo ago
    Why would having more thinking companions stop you from thinking? Knowledge compounds.
- School-Cotton 5mo ago
  I'm not sure I grasp the analogy to the invention of calculus. Calculus helped us solve new and interesting math/physics problems. Repeated for emphasis: helped *us* solve. This technology is solving interesting math/physics problems for us, which is completely different.
  - xamuel 5mo ago
    Before the discovery of the fundamental theorem of calculus, enormous ingenuity and whole careers were spent doing calculations which the fundamental theorem trivialized. To be clear, I'm not just saying that the people involved were doing lots of mechanical arithmetic (though they did that, too). I'm saying they did creative, inspired, nontrivial mathematics to calculate certain things, all of which was then trivialized and made obsolete by the fundamental theorem of calculus.
  - CamperBob2 5mo ago
    After Newton and Leibniz, math did things nobody thought it could do. After Vaswani et al., language does things nobody thought it could do.
- xpct 5mo ago
  I don't think change is inherently exciting.
  - CamperBob2 5mo ago
    Maybe plumbing, masonry, or mining would have been a better career fit, then. Tech isn't for everybody.
cman1444 5mo ago
Because for many people who pursue these fundamental truths, the reward is not necessarily personal fame, fortune, or even personal understanding. Advancing humanity's total knowledge (even if that knowledge is by proxy through AI) is reward enough.
- retardkiller 5mo ago
  [dead]
- mathgradthrow 5mo ago
  I think when your work is no longer required, you will probably come to regret this sentiment, not that it matters.
  - fartfeatures 5mo ago
    I think by that point humanity will having some pretty fundamental discussions about the nature of work and money.
    - salawat 5mo ago
      I think you are blinded by an unprecedented optimism the rest of us simply cannot afford to entertain.
    - Enginerrrd 5mo ago
      Go ahead and have that conversation with the billionaires running a worldwide satellite grid of data centers to power their AI surveillance dragnet and autonomous robot soldiers. See how far it’ll get you.
      - necovek 5mo ago
        If they don't have millions/billions of customers to spend koney on whatever they are selling, their riches become irrelevant too. Money is valuable only as it changes hands for goods/services, and if you want to get rich, on top of having/producing/controlling something everybody desires, you also need as many people as possible to have money to give you in exchange for a piece of that something.
krackers 5mo ago
If one only found meaning in life through external factors like work (no matter how "intellectually rewarding") then it seems like a life destined for eventual disappointment.
ted_dunning 5mo ago
Does it terrify you to look at children? Not so many years from now, some of them will surpass you. A few years after that all (that survive to that point) will surpass you. Does that terrify you just as much?
- retardkiller 5mo ago
  [dead]
- qotgalaxy 5mo ago
  [dead]
- IAmGraydon 5mo ago
  That’s kind of a strange comparison. It’s the natural order for a population to thrive, reproduce, age, repeat. I’m not taking a side on the original comment, but the idea of human skill being completely supplanted by AI is not the same thing as having children and getting old.
- doctorwho42 5mo ago
  AI is not a living or conscience entity, no matter what the hype men are selling society. A child is a living, breathing, growing, and changing conscious entity. It is the natural order for the young to supplant the old, no matter what the politicians and billionaires desire. "AI" - terrifies anyone who understands the pact our society rests upon: that labor is valued and can be exchanged for goods and services to survive. Thereby enabling a person to support their families without having to do everything themselves. If AI replaced a noticeable fraction of society, destroying their capacity for work. That threatens and ultimately blows up this compact between working class and capital class... With it, the foundations of a modern technological society.... It may sound like hyperbole, or some fantastical prediction. But really it is basic economics, like econ 101... And personally the last few years have terrified me, not because of AI directly, but because how ignorantly blind many smart and tech savvy people are... You are marching us to collapse with a smile on your face...
  - wartywhoa23 5mo ago
trostaft 5mo ago
I spent years grinding to learn mathematics because it was the language I needed to solve problems that excite me. If the tools I need to do so change, I can change too. Research training is not so rigid that it can only applied to the single set of skills I developed it in the context of. I can learn this too. Moreover, truth be told, I don't really see myself doing any less math and requiring less from my skills. At least from the moment I've begun incorporating LLMs into my research workflow to now, the demand I've had from my own skills has only grown. At least in an era prior to Lean formalization.
- doctorwho42 5mo ago
  What about the future mathematician's yet to be born?
xamuel 5mo ago
Mathematics is a bridge to what Neoplatonists call the intelligible world. Currently, mathematicians navigate that world on foot. It's exciting to think that soon we might have cars and trains in that world so we don't have to painstakingly walk everywhere.
dekhn 5mo ago
At least from my perspective, these sorts of tools could have the possibility of allowing us to reach post-scarcity (I guess a skynet future is another possible outcome, as is just grimdark industrial hell). If we reach that point, then anybody could (in principle- in reality utopias don't exist) pursue anything they wanted. This is just an application of the philosophy "automate yourself out of a job every 6 months"- I've been doing that for a long time, and the outcome is generally a more interesting job.
- doctorwho42 5mo ago
  But that hasn't been done at scale... If everyone automated their job every 6 months, then millions would be out of work and starving.
thegrimmest 5mo ago
Many of us don't do what we do for our expertise to be recognized or valued by others, rather that is a pleasant side effect. Many of us do what we do for intrinsic reasons related to the nature of the work, and would likely do it for free, or indeed, would pay for the opportunity. Many STEM-types are in this category, and as such, are compelled to continue to tinker as we fancy, and are glad for more tools to help us expand the breadth of our tinkering capabilities. A dedicated engineer is always looking to automate themselves out of existence, so that they can move on to the next thing to automate. Ongoing repetitive work is less engineering and more akin to toiling on a line.
piloto_ciego 5mo ago
So, I've seen this mindset a lot lately... The answer is that we simply need to decouple the "right to exist" from "worth." You should have the right to exist and explore the world simply because you're human, not because you can use your skills to provide some sort of transactional value to someone else. Deprogramming so many people is going to be hard...
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- wartywhoa23 5mo ago
  All sane and noble in theory, but in practice, how do you see that happening? Let's start with the first practical step: how do you dethrone the psychopaths in charge of the world who own about everything on Earth and have all the world's lethal force in their pockets?
  - cindyllm 5mo ago
    [dead]
  - hootz 5mo ago
    Revolution? People used to do that.
ninjagoo 5mo ago
> the closer the expertise you spent your whole life building is to being worthless. Perhaps it is time for life to be considered intrinsically valuable, instead of being "worthy" only based on output or capability. Disability, animal and environmental advocates have been fighting for this for a long time. Not too long ago women and minorities were in the same boat. Even now, there are many advocating and fighting for a return to the dark old days. > Along with all the rest of what humans find meaningful and fulfilling. Some humans. Many are content to enjoy simply existing, and the beauty of life and the universe around us. Just like many non-scientists today enjoy and benefit from the work of scientists, tomorrow too many will enjoy learning from, and applying the coming advancements and leaps in many fields. And those of a scientist or other research-type mindset? No doubt they will contribute meaningfully by studying the frontier, noting what remains unanswered, and then advancing the frontier, just like researchers do today; just because scientists in the past solved many questions doesn't mean that there aren't any questions to answer today. IMHO, AI means that the frontier expands faster, not that it is obliterated. Even AI cannot overcome the laws and limitations of physics/universe: even Dyson spheres only capture the energy of one star, thus setting a limit on the amount of compute, and thereby a limit on intelligence. And we are a loooong way from a Dyson sphere. PS: I think you're being unfairly downvoted. Your question is not invalid and deserves responses, not downvotes.
- wartywhoa23 5mo ago
  These all are valid, noble points I also used to brood about while being young and financially supported by my parents.
  - ninjagoo 5mo ago
    > These all are valid, noble points I also used to brood about while being young and financially supported by my parents. Ah, the proverbial silver spoon. Sadly, I never had that luxury. If you look through my comments, you'll notice I'm more at the get-off-my-lawn point. Also, what happened? Real world wear you down and turn you cynical? It is possible to be hopeful and cynical at the same time. This tech is something new we're seeing: the future is as yet unwritten. r/LocalLLaMa works well, so there's hope even if corporate ai goes kaput. My generation has been lucky to see a few new things, though we certainly live in interesting times. Moon Landings. Berlin Wall fall. Moore's Law. EU (I have the old coinage to serve as a reminder). Space Shuttles. China and India integrating with the world. Cellphones. The Internet. Digital Photos. Linux. Solar. 3D-printing. Smartphones. Tablets. Bitcoin. EVs. Mars rovers. Asteroid visits. Internet from space. FTTH. MRNA. Gene Therapy. MRI. Ultrasound. Wi-Fi. Mesh Wi-Fi. Reusable Rockets. Cubesats. Selfies from space. Drones. LoRa/LoraWAN. Maglev HSR. And now AI, real AI. Chinese-like Whale Language. There's hope for the future yet. You can help make it happen right. But only if you leave the cynicism at the door. Can't give up - it's our kids' futures at stake.
energy123 5mo ago
In a way, young people have an advantage over middle aged people. I've spent countless hours as a middle aged person learning skills that are now useless. Better to be a young person than a skilled artisan during the Industrial Revolution even if there's uncertainty.

CamperBob2 5mo ago

What's happening is the verbal/linguistic equivalent of the invention of calculus. No intellectual field will ever be the same again. Who wouldn't find that exciting, and want to experience it?

rogerrogerr 5mo ago
People who enjoy thinking. Ya know, the "intellectual" part.
- aroman 5mo ago
  This is the beginning of thinking, not the end...
  - windexh8er 5mo ago
    It depends. If you are in a disadvantaged class it is very likely going to err towards a dismal result long term. However if you are a privileged intellectual these models can accelerate and expand your horizon. It isn't the end, surely. It is, however, both impressive and depressive simultaneously and that perspective only depends on your point of view.
  - doctorwho42 5mo ago
    But when the bar to entry is beyond expertise in a field or subfield, how does an individual ever hope to attain an unexplored space to explore? It may be the beginning of thinking, but to many who view things on a longer timeline. It starts to look like it will breakdown the frameworks of which are required to get to that position. Otherwise, you just end up retreading explored ground. This removing the joy of discovery from any humans hand/mind.
    - 8n4vidtmkvmk 5mo ago
      Recently I've found my mind reawaken. It's about asking good questions now. The models can find the answers, but you have to know what to ask. Sometimes the model is wrong and you have to challenge it to find an alternative. Being able to explore problem spaces quickly is interesting.
- mlcrypto 5mo ago
  The so called "progressives" prove that they were the same ones crying after the printing press, automobile, calculator, washing machine, etc
  - ted_dunning 5mo ago
    You made up a group in the past and you made up things they say and then draw the inference that a different group in the present is somehow morally disadvantaged by obvious inference. Perhaps your name-calling is not actually as logically grounded as you think. It definitely seems to depend on unfounded leaps.
- fartfeatures 5mo ago
  Why would having more thinking companions stop you from thinking? Knowledge compounds.
School-Cotton 5mo ago
I'm not sure I grasp the analogy to the invention of calculus. Calculus helped us solve new and interesting math/physics problems. Repeated for emphasis: helped *us* solve. This technology is solving interesting math/physics problems for us, which is completely different.
- xamuel 5mo ago
  Before the discovery of the fundamental theorem of calculus, enormous ingenuity and whole careers were spent doing calculations which the fundamental theorem trivialized. To be clear, I'm not just saying that the people involved were doing lots of mechanical arithmetic (though they did that, too). I'm saying they did creative, inspired, nontrivial mathematics to calculate certain things, all of which was then trivialized and made obsolete by the fundamental theorem of calculus.
- CamperBob2 5mo ago
  After Newton and Leibniz, math did things nobody thought it could do. After Vaswani et al., language does things nobody thought it could do.
xpct 5mo ago
I don't think change is inherently exciting.
- CamperBob2 5mo ago
  Maybe plumbing, masonry, or mining would have been a better career fit, then. Tech isn't for everybody.

cman1444 5mo ago

Because for many people who pursue these fundamental truths, the reward is not necessarily personal fame, fortune, or even personal understanding. Advancing humanity's total knowledge (even if that knowledge is by proxy through AI) is reward enough.

retardkiller 5mo ago
[dead]
mathgradthrow 5mo ago
I think when your work is no longer required, you will probably come to regret this sentiment, not that it matters.
- fartfeatures 5mo ago
  I think by that point humanity will having some pretty fundamental discussions about the nature of work and money.
  - salawat 5mo ago
    I think you are blinded by an unprecedented optimism the rest of us simply cannot afford to entertain.
  - Enginerrrd 5mo ago
    Go ahead and have that conversation with the billionaires running a worldwide satellite grid of data centers to power their AI surveillance dragnet and autonomous robot soldiers. See how far it’ll get you.
    - necovek 5mo ago
      If they don't have millions/billions of customers to spend koney on whatever they are selling, their riches become irrelevant too. Money is valuable only as it changes hands for goods/services, and if you want to get rich, on top of having/producing/controlling something everybody desires, you also need as many people as possible to have money to give you in exchange for a piece of that something.

krackers 5mo ago

If one only found meaning in life through external factors like work (no matter how "intellectually rewarding") then it seems like a life destined for eventual disappointment.

ted_dunning 5mo ago

Does it terrify you to look at children? Not so many years from now, some of them will surpass you. A few years after that all (that survive to that point) will surpass you. Does that terrify you just as much?

retardkiller 5mo ago
[dead]
qotgalaxy 5mo ago
[dead]
IAmGraydon 5mo ago
That’s kind of a strange comparison. It’s the natural order for a population to thrive, reproduce, age, repeat. I’m not taking a side on the original comment, but the idea of human skill being completely supplanted by AI is not the same thing as having children and getting old.
doctorwho42 5mo ago
AI is not a living or conscience entity, no matter what the hype men are selling society. A child is a living, breathing, growing, and changing conscious entity. It is the natural order for the young to supplant the old, no matter what the politicians and billionaires desire. "AI" - terrifies anyone who understands the pact our society rests upon: that labor is valued and can be exchanged for goods and services to survive. Thereby enabling a person to support their families without having to do everything themselves. If AI replaced a noticeable fraction of society, destroying their capacity for work. That threatens and ultimately blows up this compact between working class and capital class... With it, the foundations of a modern technological society.... It may sound like hyperbole, or some fantastical prediction. But really it is basic economics, like econ 101... And personally the last few years have terrified me, not because of AI directly, but because how ignorantly blind many smart and tech savvy people are... You are marching us to collapse with a smile on your face...
- wartywhoa23 5mo ago

trostaft 5mo ago

I spent years grinding to learn mathematics because it was the language I needed to solve problems that excite me. If the tools I need to do so change, I can change too. Research training is not so rigid that it can only applied to the single set of skills I developed it in the context of. I can learn this too. Moreover, truth be told, I don't really see myself doing any less math and requiring less from my skills. At least from the moment I've begun incorporating LLMs into my research workflow to now, the demand I've had from my own skills has only grown. At least in an era prior to Lean formalization.

doctorwho42 5mo ago
What about the future mathematician's yet to be born?

xamuel 5mo ago

Mathematics is a bridge to what Neoplatonists call the intelligible world. Currently, mathematicians navigate that world on foot. It's exciting to think that soon we might have cars and trains in that world so we don't have to painstakingly walk everywhere.

dekhn 5mo ago

At least from my perspective, these sorts of tools could have the possibility of allowing us to reach post-scarcity (I guess a skynet future is another possible outcome, as is just grimdark industrial hell). If we reach that point, then anybody could (in principle- in reality utopias don't exist) pursue anything they wanted. This is just an application of the philosophy "automate yourself out of a job every 6 months"- I've been doing that for a long time, and the outcome is generally a more interesting job.

doctorwho42 5mo ago
But that hasn't been done at scale... If everyone automated their job every 6 months, then millions would be out of work and starving.

thegrimmest 5mo ago

Many of us don't do what we do for our expertise to be recognized or valued by others, rather that is a pleasant side effect. Many of us do what we do for intrinsic reasons related to the nature of the work, and would likely do it for free, or indeed, would pay for the opportunity. Many STEM-types are in this category, and as such, are compelled to continue to tinker as we fancy, and are glad for more tools to help us expand the breadth of our tinkering capabilities. A dedicated engineer is always looking to automate themselves out of existence, so that they can move on to the next thing to automate. Ongoing repetitive work is less engineering and more akin to toiling on a line.

piloto_ciego 5mo ago

So, I've seen this mindset a lot lately... The answer is that we simply need to decouple the "right to exist" from "worth." You should have the right to exist and explore the world simply because you're human, not because you can use your skills to provide some sort of transactional value to someone else. Deprogramming so many people is going to be hard...

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
wartywhoa23 5mo ago
All sane and noble in theory, but in practice, how do you see that happening? Let's start with the first practical step: how do you dethrone the psychopaths in charge of the world who own about everything on Earth and have all the world's lethal force in their pockets?
- cindyllm 5mo ago
  [dead]
- hootz 5mo ago
  Revolution? People used to do that.

ninjagoo 5mo ago

> the closer the expertise you spent your whole life building is to being worthless. Perhaps it is time for life to be considered intrinsically valuable, instead of being "worthy" only based on output or capability. Disability, animal and environmental advocates have been fighting for this for a long time. Not too long ago women and minorities were in the same boat. Even now, there are many advocating and fighting for a return to the dark old days. > Along with all the rest of what humans find meaningful and fulfilling. Some humans. Many are content to enjoy simply existing, and the beauty of life and the universe around us. Just like many non-scientists today enjoy and benefit from the work of scientists, tomorrow too many will enjoy learning from, and applying the coming advancements and leaps in many fields. And those of a scientist or other research-type mindset? No doubt they will contribute meaningfully by studying the frontier, noting what remains unanswered, and then advancing the frontier, just like researchers do today; just because scientists in the past solved many questions doesn't mean that there aren't any questions to answer today. IMHO, AI means that the frontier expands faster, not that it is obliterated. Even AI cannot overcome the laws and limitations of physics/universe: even Dyson spheres only capture the energy of one star, thus setting a limit on the amount of compute, and thereby a limit on intelligence. And we are a loooong way from a Dyson sphere. PS: I think you're being unfairly downvoted. Your question is not invalid and deserves responses, not downvotes.

wartywhoa23 5mo ago
These all are valid, noble points I also used to brood about while being young and financially supported by my parents.
- ninjagoo 5mo ago
  > These all are valid, noble points I also used to brood about while being young and financially supported by my parents. Ah, the proverbial silver spoon. Sadly, I never had that luxury. If you look through my comments, you'll notice I'm more at the get-off-my-lawn point. Also, what happened? Real world wear you down and turn you cynical? It is possible to be hopeful and cynical at the same time. This tech is something new we're seeing: the future is as yet unwritten. r/LocalLLaMa works well, so there's hope even if corporate ai goes kaput. My generation has been lucky to see a few new things, though we certainly live in interesting times. Moon Landings. Berlin Wall fall. Moore's Law. EU (I have the old coinage to serve as a reminder). Space Shuttles. China and India integrating with the world. Cellphones. The Internet. Digital Photos. Linux. Solar. 3D-printing. Smartphones. Tablets. Bitcoin. EVs. Mars rovers. Asteroid visits. Internet from space. FTTH. MRNA. Gene Therapy. MRI. Ultrasound. Wi-Fi. Mesh Wi-Fi. Reusable Rockets. Cubesats. Selfies from space. Drones. LoRa/LoraWAN. Maglev HSR. And now AI, real AI. Chinese-like Whale Language. There's hope for the future yet. You can help make it happen right. But only if you leave the cynicism at the door. Can't give up - it's our kids' futures at stake.

energy123 5mo ago

In a way, young people have an advantage over middle aged people. I've spent countless hours as a middle aged person learning skills that are now useless. Better to be a young person than a skilled artisan during the Industrial Revolution even if there's uncertainty.