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I think the problem is a disagreement on what kind of "automation" is the goal. You seem to want to automate all possible math. Sure, we can't do that. But we c

I think the problem is a disagreement on what kind of "automation" is the goal. You seem to want to automate all possible math. Sure, we can't do that. But we certainly can try to automate any math a human can do (eventually). An automated factory cannot build any possible car. But we no longer need to have people hand assembling the components.

JadeNB 12y ago
> I think the problem is a disagreement on what kind of "automation" is the goal. You seem to want to automate all possible math. Sure, we can't do that. But we certainly can try to automate any math a human can do (eventually). This is a very helpful reply; thanks. I don't want to automate all math, since it is impossible to do so; and I think that I have clearly indicated in each of my posts in this thread that I am speaking only to that particular, narrow issue—but I can see how that narrow nit-picking might not be of interest. The reason that I brought it up was because it sounded to me like what pnut (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8169453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8169453) was suggesting. Now, I do not believe that computers can automate any math that a human can do, except in the narrow sense that I might be able a posteriori to tell a computer to follow exactly the steps that I took. (Some 'intuitive' processes are presumably not subject to automation even in this very weak sense.) This is a much stronger assertion requiring much stronger demonstration, and I am not prepared to (nor, I think, have I claimed to) address it. Perhaps, with that caveat, that's the discussion that I should have started (with perhaps my weaker point as a footnote).