GPerson

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61.
by GPerson 22d ago
It might. It might not though. Would a 1300s superintelligence advocate for heliocentricism in the face of all institutional players advocating for geocentrism, or would it create the most refined epicycle model imaginable? I’d guess the la
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by GPerson 22d ago
Anybody who thinks that way is just in doing so, and I can think that way for 50% of the time, but it’s difficult to maintain that without extrinsic motivators. When the computer can make a more compelling experience of any kind for another
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by GPerson 22d ago
My point is that when the consumer application became apparent we already had the required concepts to build the technology on top of. In mathematics it still hasn’t happened that an LLM system has invented a conceptual framework. In most i
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by GPerson 22d ago
It’s not a joke. My goals in life were all based around developing mastery for a meaningful purpose, and now there’s no need. What keeps me going is that at least I have some consumerist goals like understanding consciousness and physics or
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by GPerson 22d ago
It honestly just makes me think there’s little reason for me to be alive anymore.
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by GPerson 22d ago
I don’t think the letter is even anti-tech progress. I also don’t think the tech companies are primarily pro-math progress (not that I think you think that). It’s primarily “anti-unnecessarily-destroy-the-human-systems-of-mathematics-just-f
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by GPerson 22d ago
Agreed, though for the hn audience I want to advocate a bit for the utility of mathematics. The development of applicable mathematics has often not been through the direct means of solving an open problem. It has however often depended on t
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by GPerson 22d ago
Your position is compatible with the letter.
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by GPerson 22d ago
It’s not even anti-tech though. Terence Tao signed it. The commenter above reduces the conversation to a false dichotomy.
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by GPerson 22d ago
The letter is not advocating not to use LLMs. It’s advocating to use them in ways which don’t erode human understanding.
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by GPerson 22d ago
The tools exist, so let’s try to figure out as humans the best way to use them to promote humanity, and let’s advocate against ways of using them which are a detriment to humanity, which is exactly the charge the letter makes. There are cul
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by GPerson 22d ago
This is pretty disappointing I have to say. The letter actually has a “pro AI” stance (see quote below), and Gowers’ apparent reason for not signing it is so subtle (not wanting to offend people whose goal in mathematics is not understandin
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by GPerson 22d ago
The letter is not incompatible with “pro AI in math” unless one thinks arguing against extreme behavior such as corporations using millions of dollars to scoop results makes one “anti AI”, which is not a reasonable stance in my opinion. &gt
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by GPerson 23d ago
There’s no reason to expect an empirical test for consciousness. Expecting one makes assumptions about what it is, and we don’t know what it is. (There’s also no reason to expect there not to be one, but I feel the need to make this remark.
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by GPerson 23d ago
The definition presented in the survey is the one I have in mind. You may be suggesting that the respondents have a distinct one in mind though.
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by GPerson 23d ago
Do people argue this way about animals? To me it’s a very depressing reality that more people seem willing to believe AI systems are conscious than dairy cows.
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by GPerson 23d ago
“AI researcher” seems like a fairly broad category. People who primarily think about CNNs and transformers probably spend about as much time considering the problem of consciousness as any other educated person, which is not very much time.
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by GPerson 26d ago
Not really. There’s no honest sense in which quantum mechanics is interpolated from the text of Euclid’s elements, to demonstrate the point with a very extreme example. Many mathematical breakthroughs of the past seem to have involved the o
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by GPerson 26d ago
It’s all about what “new” means. It is possible to prove something in a very tedious way using preexisting techniques. There have many times in history been new ideas which are not just very impressive applications of old techniques. I’m st
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by GPerson 26d ago
I’m just going to say this 100 times I guess. Terence Tao has had a very consistent narrative on AI in math for a very long time, at least since 2023. He’s always described it as a surprisingly good tool and has advocated that mathematician
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by GPerson 27d ago
You can invent whatever fantasy you like. I hope more honest people will read the letter (from the fields medalists and other endorsers) and consider it on its merits.
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by GPerson 27d ago
> But solving problems is only a tool and proxy for achieving the primary goal of conceptual understanding and insight. Forgetting this in the world of AI may turn the tool against the primary goal.
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by GPerson 27d ago
Mathematicians are not idiots! They’ve been living on the same planet as you for the last few years and everyone in any thinking profession has been debating and coming to terms with reality over the same period. People who aren’t involved
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by GPerson 28d ago
It’s frustrating that this comment is at the top because it, along with lots of the replies it inspired, absolutely misrepresents the actual declaration. The declaration is not making any statements about not using any AI in mathematics. Th
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by GPerson 28d ago
He’s not shell-shocked. He’s had an extremely consistent narrative for years now. You are experiencing a bias where you project your own views onto others, probably because you are not very informed on this.
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by GPerson 28d ago
What’s optimistic or non-optimistic specifically about the machine having a system of mathematics beyond our comprehension within it? Why should we care about that in itself?
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by GPerson 29d ago
Does the same effect happen in a society which rewrites all of its knowledge over and over using AI?
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by GPerson 29d ago
I don’t think this will happen, but it’s possible for humans to adjust our philosophy of mathematical work so that we deprioritize “egotistical” (this is a bad word for what I’m going for, but I mean the desire and economic necessity to ass
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by GPerson 29d ago
You are a coward.
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by GPerson 29d ago
They’re not necessarily claiming the solutions were imminent. The big questions here from a mathematician’s perspective are to what extent these LLM systems are discovering conceptually new ideas compared to merely combining and pursuing kn

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