4 comments

  • rahidz 52 minutes ago
    Man I remember back when a psychic conned me by solving the Navier-Stokes problem.

    Also >July 4th, 2023

    • inopinatus 11 minutes ago
      The more compelling inversion is whether the likes of John Nash, Richard Feynman, John Conway etc could’ve had a lucrative second career as conmen.
      • atemerev 2 minutes ago
        von Neumann could. The others, I doubt it.
    • Angostura 34 minutes ago
      But were you successfully conned into believing an AI had solved the Navier-Stokes problem?
      • tescreal 31 minutes ago
        What is the consensus among experts?
        • 27388383 18 minutes ago
          in before someone quotes openais enployee of the month terrance whatever
    • rusk 47 minutes ago
      Did an AI do that on its own though? I heard it was human mathematicians using a sophisticated machine as a tool.
      • broast 1 minute ago
        The way frontier models work, that loop will get compressed to a one-shot within a version or two
      • meowface 31 minutes ago
        All of the latest big proofs were driven by professional human mathematicians steering and priming the models, yes.

        All of the best AI-made software projects are also driven by experienced human software developers steering and priming the models. Does that mean the projects "aren't made by AI"?

        No, it just means AI is not quite good enough yet to fully replace humans, and, so, unsurprisingly, the best results will be obtained from people who are already great at a field and who take the time to squeeze as much force multiplication out of LLMs as possible. The AI is still doing well over 95% of the significant work.

        • TomGarden 22 minutes ago
          While I agree with you, I think we also have to concede that this is not how these accomplishments have been presented. I'd argue most people I've seen talk about this online are unaware of the mathematicians steering the models.
        • basch 18 minutes ago
          “Good enough to replace humans” isn’t necessarily the benchmark.

          The question is is a computer with a human stronger than a computer without a human. At what point does the hybrid go from being stronger, to the human getting in the way, or steering the computer in more wrong directions that right ones, or the human not being able to keep up. Does the human add enough extra randomness to be of value for a while, even as a minor co-processor.

      • mstank 41 minutes ago
        It sounds like LLMs were pretty useful to them…
        • ModernMech 22 minutes ago
          So was Lean. Did Lean solve it?
  • mstank 44 minutes ago
    This is a strange newsletter post. It’s harping against AI but seems AI-written itself.

    Its ultimate conclusion:

    “I’ve come to the conclusion that a language model is almost always the wrong tool for the job.

    I strongly advise against integrating an LLM or chatbot into your product, website, or organisational processes.”

    Seems so obviously biased that I can only understand it with the context that the writer is trying to sell their book for €35

    • mstank 34 minutes ago
      Just realized this was written in 2023. Can’t believe how wrong we were about AI back then.
      • JoshTriplett 30 minutes ago
        Can't believe how right we were, too.
    • ryuuseijin 34 minutes ago
      The post makes sense for 2023. Today, not so much.

      Also, definitely not AI written if the date is accurate.

  • atemerev 49 minutes ago
    All of this is accurate (and useful). But yeah, psychics do not prove theorems from frontier math and build working complex software.
    • cmiles74 10 minutes ago
      In my opinion, this article is talking about people who get into long conversations and become convinced the model is “intelligent”, maybe even “AGI”. This seems to be a trap people are falling into, even in 2026.
      • atemerev 6 minutes ago
        Initial definitions of AGI (as of 2014) are long surpassed. Then, AGI was defined as something that is general enough to work in many fields and orient themselves. It did not include being smarter than humans or even having comparable intelligence to humans. By original standards, we have AGI already for some time.

        Current AGI definitions are intentionally vague.

    • igortg 14 minutes ago
      On one side I agree that LLMs and Agents are not intelligent, but they present an illusion of intelligence given the shear amount of data they can process and act upon.

      But that cannot be used to discredit the fact that these are incredibly powerful tools that can get out of control and cause great damage.

      • atemerev 9 minutes ago
        What is "intelligence" then. I think the universalism of LLMs is now evident enough that they can be considered "intelligent", even in slightly different realization compared to humans.

        As of "great damage", I doubt it. They do not have self-preservation instinct (all "worrying" experiments are the attempts to initiate something resembling self-preservation from human initiative). The driving part is external - the query loop can always be turned off. So yes, a dangerous tool that can be exploited by humans (including governments, especially governments - which is why I am skeptical to government regulation proposals, particularly looking at what passes as governments in this era). But there are no inherent dangers from their own agency, as there is none.