Thread

1. lubujackson · 1789675061 · focus · HN ↗

   Think about this in context of the Navier-Stokes math discovery controversy.

   Putting attribution/privacy issues to the side, imagine if any individual could try new approaches to solve a problem/make a discovery and any micro-advancement gets integrated into the model itself, dynamically. This could transform progress from the slow "write a paper, get peer reviewed and published, use published data to inform future work" to a system with a centralized repository of concepts, attempts and results, including failed approaches already tried. How much work do humans waste replicating failed approaches?

   Someone completely random halfway around the world could trigger a prompt that solves a blocker that prevents my solution from working. Who cares about AGI or "can models invent anything" when we could have a system that automatically synthesizes individual human thought into a rich network of aggregate human memory.

   That's the target OpenAI/Anthropic should be evangelizing, not an AI Daddy Overlord or agentic script kiddie hellscape.

   1. jester997 · 1789681267 · focus · HN ↗

      “How much work do humans waste replicating failed approaches?”

      It’s not the destination, it’s the journey to get there. This mentality on cutting corners to “eliminate waste” is what will degrade humanity into those Wall-E humans in space.

      For example, if we just say, “Oh, someone did this already, why bother?” Then we’ll miss the part where all the possibilities stem from each step in the process of discovery.

      Do what you love to do. Solve problems people have already completed. That’s where perspective comes from. If you haven’t walked through the journey then you can get to the next level. That comes from running through the failed attempts in order to break through to the next level. Don’t worry about what people have and haven’t done. If you’re doing something enjoyable, then that’s all that matters.

      1. hmartin · 1789690941 · focus · HN ↗

         That's not what the original comment is saying at all (if I'm reading it right). It's saying that negative results are valuable knowledge that are difficult to discover and collate since they tend to never be published. Nice high horse tho.

         1. jester997 · 1789696273 · focus · HN ↗

            We have the printing press from Gutenberg and so-on and so-forth, then Maxwell equations and Einstein. No computers just pencils and paper, maybe some chalk and slate. No need for AI driven global machine powered brains. Do the work, either you’ll get a discovery or someone will build on your work and make a discovery in the future. The electrical grid might go down, though. Or hacked by an AI swarm. Then we’re stuck with pencil and paper, chalk and slate. :)

            1. willy_k · 1789703531 · focus · HN ↗

               > Do the work, either you’ll get a discovery or someone will build on your work and make a discovery in the future.

               Tell that to modern academia. This may be true but the barriers to realizing it are great today.

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