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Counterpoint: I'm not anti tech at all. In fact, I sell an AI harness for legal. I think you've set up a false dichotomy. I'd propose to you the middle ground

by piker 9d ago

Counterpoint: I'm not anti tech at all. In fact, I sell an AI harness for legal. I think you've set up a false dichotomy. I'd propose to you the middle ground that a lot of us are concerned that VC-backed AI slop is "solving" problems in indigestible ways that hollow out the core. This applies in OSS as well as mathematics.

simianwords 9d ago
Please help me understand this and I'm asking this in good faith. Why can't OpenAI publish whatever it wants. And the math community can use it or not use it. Fundamentally OpenAI's solutions are high signal - they are incentivised to not deliberately mislead people. Let the individuals in math community choose to read it or understand it? If OpenAI wants to publish something, let them do it in the current channels using peer review using whatever time is required. What's wrong with this? The math community thinks this will destroy previously unwritten ways of prestige allocation and remove incentives that used to exist. I say that the community can rearrange and allocate prestige and time in different ways to maximally use the technology.
- neuroticnews25 9d ago
  >community can rearrange You're describing an improvised surgery on a living organism. Developing a complex system involving humans that is productive and doesn't collapse is extremely hard, so if it ain't broke don't fix it.
  - simianwords 9d ago
    But man this is ridiculous. 25 field medalists don’t accept agency in their own community but try to push external people to change their process?? Why can’t the letter say “guys new tech dropped. We need to reorganise. Understanding is crucial” instead of asking OpenAI to change their process.
    - NonHyloMorph 8d ago
      Might have to do with the circumstances of Open AIs conduct that was quite sketchy to say the least? There is 25 people who see it as their responsibility to use their status in the field of maths to weigh in on public discourse regarding that field.
      - ChickeNES 8d ago
        > Might have to do with the circumstances of Open AIs conduct that was quite sketchy to say the least? OpenAI did nothing wrong, being a Fields medalist does not give anyone a monopoly on the truth.
        jambalaya8 8d ago
        receiving a prize for math or any other discipline doesn't even mean the person was right or truthful. just sayin'.
        varjag 8d ago
        Fields medalists aren't made on some Fields factory. These are 25 people from different backgrounds, generations, educational institutions and countries. It's kind of incredible you guys think they decided to collude against OpenAI rather than simply addressing a concern about their field they believe is important.
        jambalaya8 8d ago
        I am aware of this. As I am aware they at times decide not to give anyone one... shrug. Mathematicians were somewhat wiser in the 1960s but the biologists and social sciences never were.
        ChickeNES 8d ago
        Never said they were colluding. I said I have no patience for incumbents asking for restrictions on a technology that threatens the value of their expertise.
- gilleain 9d ago
  The Math community can "not use" a proof? How would that work? It's a little like coloured functions (async etc) - you have 'human proved' vs 'machine proved'?
  - simianwords 9d ago
    Are you suggesting that a human can't have the agency to decide whether to use it or not?
    - gilleain 9d ago
      No, obviously not ... I'm pointing out that the way Mathematics works as a discipline is that a new proof builds on existing proofs. If we have a bunch of machine-generated proofs, then a human Mathematician has to decide whether to reference any relevant machine proof that has been put out there. If, as you suggest, human Mathematicians 'choose to ignore' a machine proof, then another human decides not to, what then? Mathematics bifurcates into 'pure human' proofs and 'mixed machine-human' or maybe 'pure machine'?
      - simianwords 9d ago
        Well ok I understand your point. I’m trying to say the system has to change to adapt. Imagine accountants saying the same thing against calculators. They had to adapt. So do mathematicians. So do I in software development.
        gilleain 9d ago
        Consider that 'calculator' used to be a title for a role a human used to do. That went away, which is probably fine as there were other jobs and likely it was tedious. Then consider that "just adapt" could be "adapt or die", and that maybe, just maybe there is no way to adapt to well-funded corporations churning out millions of proofs a minute. I don't know, maybe AI companies have "agency" to not break everyone else's stuff, just to get more funding and a higher share price?
  - 9d ago
- piker 9d ago
  They can use the new proofs as foundations for future proofs. But many folks just won't be motivated to attack or help digest solved problems because there's less extrinsic value in doing so. Tao and others argue that it's this human effort that finds human-relatable abstractions which spurn further investigation. Take the humans out of the loop, and they'll stay there, is the argument as I understand it.
  - simianwords 9d ago
    I read this multiple times and also recollected the original letter. You can’t really blame me for thinking this is a straaaange request. “Don’t help me solve my problems because it removes the incentive to be in this field” is how I hear it. Honestly. I would say the incentives HAVE to change because of new found capabilities. Imagine accountants asking companies to reconsider producing calculators because we used to value accountants for how well they did arithmetic!! Edit: my main point is that the math community has full agency to do what it wants with new found tech. Instead, asking to change external entities like OpenAI to be careful with releases is a strange thing to do. Why not change yourself and adapt?
- jplusequalt 9d ago
  >Why can't OpenAI publish whatever it wants. And the math community can use it or not use it. The "math community" is not an isolated entity that is free from the confines of society. It's made up of lots of people who coexist in a system that requires you to assert your right to live. Furthermore, the "math community" is overwhelmingly supported by outside donations to keep it running. That's not to say people don't practice math for the fun of it, but that if you're researching problems like Navier-Stokes, you almost certainly are being paid by another party to do so. But those parties may hold new forms of technology over the professional mathematicians head in the name of "productivity", or they may even believe in light of this tech that paying a human to practice math is no longer worth it. Therefore, mathematicians find themselves coerced by the market to adopt new tools in order to get by, even if the mathematical community largely finds it distasteful.
  - ChickeNES 8d ago
    So what you're saying is that, if the same work can be done with fewer resources, that money can be better used elsewhere now?
  - pfdietz 9d ago
    It feels like the scene from Blazing Saddles where Mel Brooks' character says "We've got to protect our phony-baloney jobs, gentlemen." If the math community was previously not entirely aligned with what society was expecting, and these changes threaten that previous arrangement, that sounds like a "you" problem for math, not a problem for OpenAI. If they can't align with society's needs and demands then some creative destruction is coming their way.
    - NonHyloMorph 8d ago
      do you think about where your resentment is coming from?
      - pfdietz 8d ago
        That's some prime gaslighting you're doing there.

by piker 9d ago

simianwords 9d ago

Please help me understand this and I'm asking this in good faith. Why can't OpenAI publish whatever it wants. And the math community can use it or not use it. Fundamentally OpenAI's solutions are high signal - they are incentivised to not deliberately mislead people. Let the individuals in math community choose to read it or understand it? If OpenAI wants to publish something, let them do it in the current channels using peer review using whatever time is required. What's wrong with this? The math community thinks this will destroy previously unwritten ways of prestige allocation and remove incentives that used to exist. I say that the community can rearrange and allocate prestige and time in different ways to maximally use the technology.

neuroticnews25 9d ago
>community can rearrange You're describing an improvised surgery on a living organism. Developing a complex system involving humans that is productive and doesn't collapse is extremely hard, so if it ain't broke don't fix it.
- simianwords 9d ago
  But man this is ridiculous. 25 field medalists don’t accept agency in their own community but try to push external people to change their process?? Why can’t the letter say “guys new tech dropped. We need to reorganise. Understanding is crucial” instead of asking OpenAI to change their process.
  - NonHyloMorph 8d ago
    Might have to do with the circumstances of Open AIs conduct that was quite sketchy to say the least? There is 25 people who see it as their responsibility to use their status in the field of maths to weigh in on public discourse regarding that field.
    - ChickeNES 8d ago
      > Might have to do with the circumstances of Open AIs conduct that was quite sketchy to say the least? OpenAI did nothing wrong, being a Fields medalist does not give anyone a monopoly on the truth.
      - jambalaya8 8d ago
        receiving a prize for math or any other discipline doesn't even mean the person was right or truthful. just sayin'.
        varjag 8d ago
        Fields medalists aren't made on some Fields factory. These are 25 people from different backgrounds, generations, educational institutions and countries. It's kind of incredible you guys think they decided to collude against OpenAI rather than simply addressing a concern about their field they believe is important.
        jambalaya8 8d ago
        I am aware of this. As I am aware they at times decide not to give anyone one... shrug. Mathematicians were somewhat wiser in the 1960s but the biologists and social sciences never were.
        ChickeNES 8d ago
        Never said they were colluding. I said I have no patience for incumbents asking for restrictions on a technology that threatens the value of their expertise.
gilleain 9d ago
The Math community can "not use" a proof? How would that work? It's a little like coloured functions (async etc) - you have 'human proved' vs 'machine proved'?
- simianwords 9d ago
  Are you suggesting that a human can't have the agency to decide whether to use it or not?
  - gilleain 9d ago
    No, obviously not ... I'm pointing out that the way Mathematics works as a discipline is that a new proof builds on existing proofs. If we have a bunch of machine-generated proofs, then a human Mathematician has to decide whether to reference any relevant machine proof that has been put out there. If, as you suggest, human Mathematicians 'choose to ignore' a machine proof, then another human decides not to, what then? Mathematics bifurcates into 'pure human' proofs and 'mixed machine-human' or maybe 'pure machine'?
    - simianwords 9d ago
      Well ok I understand your point. I’m trying to say the system has to change to adapt. Imagine accountants saying the same thing against calculators. They had to adapt. So do mathematicians. So do I in software development.
      - gilleain 9d ago
        Consider that 'calculator' used to be a title for a role a human used to do. That went away, which is probably fine as there were other jobs and likely it was tedious. Then consider that "just adapt" could be "adapt or die", and that maybe, just maybe there is no way to adapt to well-funded corporations churning out millions of proofs a minute. I don't know, maybe AI companies have "agency" to not break everyone else's stuff, just to get more funding and a higher share price?
- 9d ago
piker 9d ago
They can use the new proofs as foundations for future proofs. But many folks just won't be motivated to attack or help digest solved problems because there's less extrinsic value in doing so. Tao and others argue that it's this human effort that finds human-relatable abstractions which spurn further investigation. Take the humans out of the loop, and they'll stay there, is the argument as I understand it.
- simianwords 9d ago
  I read this multiple times and also recollected the original letter. You can’t really blame me for thinking this is a straaaange request. “Don’t help me solve my problems because it removes the incentive to be in this field” is how I hear it. Honestly. I would say the incentives HAVE to change because of new found capabilities. Imagine accountants asking companies to reconsider producing calculators because we used to value accountants for how well they did arithmetic!! Edit: my main point is that the math community has full agency to do what it wants with new found tech. Instead, asking to change external entities like OpenAI to be careful with releases is a strange thing to do. Why not change yourself and adapt?
jplusequalt 9d ago
>Why can't OpenAI publish whatever it wants. And the math community can use it or not use it. The "math community" is not an isolated entity that is free from the confines of society. It's made up of lots of people who coexist in a system that requires you to assert your right to live. Furthermore, the "math community" is overwhelmingly supported by outside donations to keep it running. That's not to say people don't practice math for the fun of it, but that if you're researching problems like Navier-Stokes, you almost certainly are being paid by another party to do so. But those parties may hold new forms of technology over the professional mathematicians head in the name of "productivity", or they may even believe in light of this tech that paying a human to practice math is no longer worth it. Therefore, mathematicians find themselves coerced by the market to adopt new tools in order to get by, even if the mathematical community largely finds it distasteful.
- ChickeNES 8d ago
  So what you're saying is that, if the same work can be done with fewer resources, that money can be better used elsewhere now?
- pfdietz 9d ago
  It feels like the scene from Blazing Saddles where Mel Brooks' character says "We've got to protect our phony-baloney jobs, gentlemen." If the math community was previously not entirely aligned with what society was expecting, and these changes threaten that previous arrangement, that sounds like a "you" problem for math, not a problem for OpenAI. If they can't align with society's needs and demands then some creative destruction is coming their way.
  - NonHyloMorph 8d ago
    do you think about where your resentment is coming from?
    - pfdietz 8d ago
      That's some prime gaslighting you're doing there.