Thread

1. piker · 1789636353 · focus · HN ↗

   > With that interpretation, the issue becomes slightly different: is it more important that the collective understanding of the mathematical community should be as advanced as possible or that there should be answers to as many problems as possible? Or are those two aims valuable in different ways, so that there is no point in declaring one of them more important? Or are they so inextricably linked that it makes no sense to argue that one is more important than the other? And when we say “important”, for whom are we saying it is important: for mathematicians, or for society as a whole?

   This is easy to me. Truth should be the North Star. If there is a fundamental truth that can be found via mathematics, then the shortest route to that truth should be preferred. While LLMs are definitely capable of solving problems in search of truth, I agree with Tao that instant "true/false" results threaten to short-circuit the traditional avenues we have used to escape local minima in the search for truth. Their products may be the junk food that provides immediate satiation in exchange for long-term health. Perhaps it's wrong, though.

   1. varjag · 1789637060 · focus · HN ↗

      The whole point of the letter was that if we adopt this gradient search strategy the humanity might get stuck in a local maximum forever.

      1. bananaflag · 1789637216 · focus · HN ↗

         Thing is, you can say that about any technology (not being here necessarily pro AI in math, but I think we need better arguments).

         1. topaz0 · 1789688217 · focus · HN ↗

            You can say it about becoming collectively overdependent on any technology. And I think there's a good case to be made that a similar phenomenon is true for other technologies e.g. over-reliance on (normal) computers has done similar things in my opinion, at least in my field of physics, where you get a more precise result but much less insight.

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