Thread

1. saberience · 1790086112 · focus · HN ↗

   How many of these "news" articles are we going to get?

   This for me, isn't interesting, it required no skill, no imagination, in fact it seemed like it happened by dumb luck.

   So we have entered an age where an army of know-nothings direct models to old forgotten tasks so they can get 15 minutes of un-deserved attention?

   1. embedding-shape · 1790086194 · focus · HN ↗

      > This for me, isn't interesting, it required no skill, no imagination, in fact it seemed like it happened by dumb luck.

      So like half of all useful human inventions are to you not interesting just because it happened by dumb luck?

      1. pixl97 · 1790086589 · focus · HN ↗

         Yea, it's kind of odd how "sour grapes" people can be when something stops being as special as they thought it was.

         Take someone from a few hundred years ago and drop them into today, and if they don't go catatonic and die, then they'd tell you that we created magic. "Wow, you live in a world of magic and all you do is bitch about it".

         >"You're flying! You're sitting in a chair, in the sky!"

         1. staticman2 · 1790087201 · focus · HN ↗

            Actuallllly these hypothetical people from a few hundred years ago hypothetically said you are an awful person for misrepresenting them, stop putting words in their mouth, thank you!
      2. mossTechnician · 1790086735 · focus · HN ↗

         A person inventing something, even out of dumb luck, is interesting.

         A machine running a loop through an expensive LLM for an undisclosed amount of time, which cost an undisclosed amount of money, which was told to keep looping into a solution was found, for a problem that nobody was very concerned about... That just seems like PR, and it's not so interesting.

         1. IAmBroom · 1790102796 · focus · HN ↗

            To you.
   2. dominotw · 1790086209 · focus · HN ↗

      Just reflects how much of modern "work" is just dumb shit that we need to be freed from.

      1. writtenone · 1790086427 · focus · HN ↗

         Absolutely! Meetings about the emails and emails about the meetings!
      2. willy_k · 1790087147 · focus · HN ↗

         The reason these are unsolved is because no-one was working on them.

         1. pixl97 · 1790089330 · focus · HN ↗

            So you're telling me that any problem a human starts working on gets solved simply because they are a human?

            Lets stop and think about this, there is now a machine that can solve a bunch of problems that have not been solved simply because there wasn't enough people with knowledge to work on them, and all we have to do is supply power to get the answers?

            Irrational hate causes one to be blind.

            1. latexr · 1790090209 · focus · HN ↗

               > So you're telling me that any problem a human starts working on gets solved simply because they are a human?

               No? I don’t think that’s what they’re saying at all.

               > there is now a machine that can solve a bunch of problems that have not been solved simply because there wasn't enough people with knowledge to work on them

               That “simply” is doing a ton of work. A big reason there aren’t enough people with knowledge to work on these problems is that their basic needs aren’t met. If a slice of the money being poured into AI right now had been used to incentivise humans to work on these problems, maybe they wouldn’t still be unsolved.

               > and all we have to do is supply power to get the answers?

               That is again, quite reductive. The harms caused by LLMs, both environmental and societal, are much larger than “just supply power”.

               > Irrational hate causes one to be blind.

               Funny how it’s always the ones who disagree who are irrational and blind.

               1. pixl97 · 1790091761 · focus · HN ↗

                  >If a slice of the money being poured into AI right now had been used to incentivise humans to work on these problems

                  There is no world in which this was ever going to happen or it already would have. Simply throwing out a counter-factual without explaining how any incentive for that path of reality to work means you can make any claim and tell others it's obviously true with no evidence.

                  >disagree who are irrational and blind

                  Incorrect. The dialectic is how progress is made. Getting mad and turning off your brain is a different story.

                  1. latexr · 1790096148 · focus · HN ↗

                     > There is no world in which this was ever going to happen

                     That’s the point. The incentive structure we have is bad. That’s the criticism.

                     > Simply throwing out a counter-factual without explaining how any incentive for that path of reality to work means you can make any claim and tell others it's obviously true with no evidence.

                     Again, you’re adding things to the argument which weren’t said. There is as reason “had been” was used.

   3. dumberquestions · 1790086328 · focus · HN ↗

      This wasn't possible just months ago and for many who haven't been following closely this is still newsworthy, probably not for long, though.
   4. daitangio · 1790086385 · focus · HN ↗

      yes and no. AI is great for patter-maching and finding solution by "assonance".

      I agree with you that these are not "trilling" discovery but they can be worth something anyway.

      Like you, I do not like this news also because I think they will be used to just "push" the next two IPOs (Anthropic, OpenAI).

   5. skeledrew · 1790086957 · focus · HN ↗

      If human "skill" and "imagination" are your requirements for interesting, you're going to become permanently bored fairly soon I reckon.

      1. miyoji · 1790089157 · focus · HN ↗

         > If human "skill" and "imagination" are your requirements for interesting, you're going to become permanently bored fairly soon I reckon.

         What? Why? This has been my bar for my entire life, and I've never been bored for a single second.

         1. skeledrew · 1790089763 · focus · HN ↗

            Well at least the skill aspect will soon become so niche that essentially nobody will bother with the investment. So on reflection maybe not permanently, just mostly bored.
      2. latexr · 1790089743 · focus · HN ↗

         I doubt it. For “skill” there are any number of sports; for “imagination” there are any number of stories and other mediums. It’s not like every human has just decided to roll over and not do anything anymore; quite the contrary.
      3. Anamon · 1790517584 · focus · HN ↗

         I already am.

         Even research is boring now. The drive towards understanding has almost entirely been replaced by throwing carp at the wall and seeing what sticks. "Researchers" publishing solutions they don't understand, developed through a process they can't share any insight into, solving problems nobody ever asked whether they are worth tackling.

         This truly is the most boring, underwhelming timeline in tech and research that I could ever have imagined.

         1. skeledrew · 1790547346 · focus · HN ↗

            > solutions they don't understand

            Does it really matter though? Someone who really wants to understand something can always take a deep dive into it, but over the span of humanity's timeline the - practical - trend is towards the individual understanding less while the collective body of knowledge is shared among many and preserved in non-human media. It's just another step for knowledge to also be created by non-human media, with no need for any human to understand it at any time because there's already a means of utilizing some given knowledge. In a way, we're looking at the creation of magical spells that anyone can cast by just reading from a spell book, no wizards needed.

   6. sigmar · 1790087247 · focus · HN ↗

      First time I'm seeing this. I had heard about the WWI ciphertext crack[1] but not this one, are you confusing the two?

      [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.prinzai.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;gpt-6-astra-solves-a-wwi-german-radio" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.prinzai.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;gpt-6-astra-solves-a-wwi-german-ra...

   7. chrisjj · 1790094965 · focus · HN ↗

      &gt; in fact it seemed like it happened by dumb luck.

      At best, dumb brute force computation power.

      It is about as meaningful as news that a computer found the 10....0th digit of Pi.

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