> All this new knowledge is arriving at a pace much greater than the field’s ability to process it
That’s the whole issue: it’s not knowledge, it’s data. AI can not provide an account for the proofs, or be questioned about them, or organize a talk exposing the idea because there’s no understanding behind any of it.
This is what Tao has been saying; that the results, in the strictest sense, were never the goal. It is ultimately the understanding (that previously was required to form a proof) that is valuable.
Does that mean AI is not doing something useful? If it provides a proof, it gives direction to human mathematicians who can then develop an understanding, give talks, be questioned about the topic, and teach. Is that not a useful service?
I don't think that's the argument. In my opinion this is like paying to unlock characters, à la EA. Who's going to feel a sense of accomplishment by just trying to interpret what an LLM spat out? Sure,maybe the results will be used by someone in some field, the same way a product manager uses what the development team developed. Is the PM going to give talks about it? Are they going to expand on those developments and come up with something new?
Fair, “answers” is probably more precise than “knowledge.” That gap between answers and understanding is the whole point of the post, so I think we mostly agree.
I tried "Monday Begins on Saturday" and had a pretty hard time getting through it. But I have to give it another chance - and check out the ones you mentioned.
Monday… is a very Russian book, heavily based on memes and folklore. You will have very hard time understanding it. I can’t recommend you to try it again.
The 2 books I’ve mentioned are very international on the contrary.
I am Russian, read it in the original. But I'm scarred by being forced to read meandering classics from a very young age, so I may just have a more visceral negative reaction to it that I have to get over.
It doesn't assume, it just observes. It has the capacity to use computers better than us, more persistently, in a more scalable way, to solve problems we haven't solved before like Navier-Stokes and many more to come. You can argue all you want about whether it's intelligent or not and what it means, but the solution is now here for us to process, understand, and integrate forward into our model of the world.
> All this new knowledge is arriving at a pace much greater than the field’s ability to process it
That’s the whole issue: it’s not knowledge, it’s data. AI can not provide an account for the proofs, or be questioned about them, or organize a talk exposing the idea because there’s no understanding behind any of it.
This is what Tao has been saying; that the results, in the strictest sense, were never the goal. It is ultimately the understanding (that previously was required to form a proof) that is valuable.
Does that mean AI is not doing something useful? If it provides a proof, it gives direction to human mathematicians who can then develop an understanding, give talks, be questioned about the topic, and teach. Is that not a useful service?
I don't think that's the argument. In my opinion this is like paying to unlock characters, à la EA. Who's going to feel a sense of accomplishment by just trying to interpret what an LLM spat out? Sure,maybe the results will be used by someone in some field, the same way a product manager uses what the development team developed. Is the PM going to give talks about it? Are they going to expand on those developments and come up with something new?
Fair, “answers” is probably more precise than “knowledge.” That gap between answers and understanding is the whole point of the post, so I think we mostly agree.
I highly recommend also reading the “Inhabited Island” as well as “Hard to be a God” by these authors. These books are brilliant as well.
I tried "Monday Begins on Saturday" and had a pretty hard time getting through it. But I have to give it another chance - and check out the ones you mentioned.
Monday… is a very Russian book, heavily based on memes and folklore. You will have very hard time understanding it. I can’t recommend you to try it again.
The 2 books I’ve mentioned are very international on the contrary.
BTW, “The kid from hell” is also really good.
I am Russian, read it in the original. But I'm scarred by being forced to read meandering classics from a very young age, so I may just have a more visceral negative reaction to it that I have to get over.
Unrelated to the article: Roadside Picnic inspired a movie called Stalker, which in turn inspired the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game series.
Both of those are listed on the image of the book cover in the article.
Yep it's the OG literary version. Very much worth a read.
I wasn't a big fan of the book, tbh. I love the movie though, it's one of my favorites.
The movie is almost unrelated to the book. I really like the book though, even being as depressing as it is.
I can only recommend Strougastky brothers books’, I enjoyed ‘Hard to Be a God’ and wish to read more from them.
That is why I find the prospect of spoiling the plot without warning to be bad taste and didn’t finish the article.
No real spoilers in the article though. Just one of the ideas revealed very early in the book.
A new analogy for the HN audience that is susceptible to reinforcement learning applied to humans (daily)!
This rests on the (completely false) premise that AI is doing anything other than simply parroting our human knowledge back at us
It has no capacity to think, argue, demonstrate, or certainly do anything even remotely close to “intelligence”
It doesn't assume, it just observes. It has the capacity to use computers better than us, more persistently, in a more scalable way, to solve problems we haven't solved before like Navier-Stokes and many more to come. You can argue all you want about whether it's intelligent or not and what it means, but the solution is now here for us to process, understand, and integrate forward into our model of the world.
Completely false