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To be honest I didn’t get that much outrage here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49662116 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49662116 It seems like a l
by boron1006 22d ago
To be honest I didn’t get that much outrage here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49662116 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49662116
It seems like a lot of the issue here is that these problems aren’t interesting in and of themselves, but they lead down interesting roads. It defeats the purpose if you solve them without getting any real understanding.
It’s akin to saying you’ve solved “pancake flipping” problems with a waffle maker, or “travelling salesman” problems with a zoom meeting.
- grufkork 22d agoGoing to the gym and using a forklift
- cristoperb 22d agoThis is a good metaphor for treating the means as an end, thanks. And I agree with your parent comment that that is largely the misalignment that Terence is pointing out.
- bpodgursky 22d agoThere is an implicit agreement that mathematics is funded, for the most part by the public, as a way to advance the state of knowledge and propagate (even if very indirectly) what has learned for the public good. It was never about helping individual mathematicians demonstrate that they are individually good at math. It happened to work out that way, but it wasn't the goal.
- criddell 22d agoI've been wondering if mathematics is going to go the way of particle physics in that it will start to take a lot of money to make advancements.
- grufkork 22d agoAgree, my comment is rather about the fact that most work you do in school and (lower) university is not itself of interest, rather the purpose is to work out your brain. The more of your exercise you leave to the forklift, the steeper the cliff will be when you find a weight that doesn’t fit on forks. (That is, unless/until machines get good enough to completely replace people, at which point we have another few problems on hand, such as day-to-day purpose and justification of existence)
- Art9681 22d agoNothing is stopping these folks from continuing to study the problems and arriving at their own solutions so they can continue having whatever insights along the way. Well, one thing is stopping them. There will be no more adoration for their genius. If you truly do it for understanding and not the attention, carry on. AI should change nothing about your motivations.
- boron1006 22d ago> Nothing is stopping these folks from continuing to study the problems My understanding is they are? And literally everything in this world is based around incentives. If you say “well you can continue to work on understanding, but your kids are going to starve” that’s not nothing.
- ThalesX 22d agoIt boggles my mind. Why cure cancer? The cancer researchers will be out of a job and their kids are going to starve!
- daveguy 22d agoThe point isn't what happens after something is solved. Where is the motivation for humans to study/find a potential solution if your kids are going to starve while you do it? These things can brute force problems that have a clearly and feasibly searchable answer, but they can't make creative leaps. It will be a severe dark ages for mathematics if humans stop contributing.
- ifethereal 22d agoMaybe an analogy of "why not solve all medical problems at once" is closer. We absolutely want to, of course. But you extinguish an industry and the systems of training that supply it. It's hard to know if letting it go that way is right.
- anthonypasq 22d ago