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I have the same questions about human mathematicians! I can't tell if xkcd #435 is still true, or if math is just as mushy as everything else seems to be. When
by a_conservative 2mo ago
I have the same questions about human mathematicians!
I can't tell if xkcd #435 is still true, or if math is just as mushy as everything else seems to be. When a math proof can only be understood by a handful of people, what does that mean about that proof? I think the LLMs are pushing a problem that existed already and pushing it further.
[0] https://xkcd.com/435/ https://xkcd.com/435/
- eru 2mo agoThat's why OpenAI also published machine-checkable proofs. The process is very, very faintly similar to running a typechecker over your software sources.
- parineum 2mo agoThey're publishing machine checkable proofs because that's the only way they, themselves, can check them. They don't understand the math either.
- inigyou 2mo agoFor 3.5 days we had a machine checkable proof the Collatz conjecture was false. There turned out to be a bug in the machine checker.
- eru 2mo agoYes, however any LLM agent you asked about that proof could tell you that. (And even most humans who know a little bit about the bug.) You are right that Lean isn't great in this respect, and people are working on proof formalisations that are less prone to bugs.