There is a failure to understand that the process is the result. You don't study mathematics or computer science and information theory to produce commodities. You study them to transform your mind. The output of an LLM is useless without a human mind to comprehend it. We can have Super Intelligence, but if humans are incapable of comprehending it, it is just another useless dead artifact. Practice, applied over a lifetime, is what creates the capability for comprehension. Asking an LLM to give you an answer creates an artifact. Humans being humans, most of their requests boil down to "make me rich without having to work for it," so the request itself is paradoxical and impossible to satisfy. Philosophers have only been saying this for all of human history, so don't hold your breath for any breakthroughs.
nobody who has ever achieved notoriety in any intellectual field ever did it to "meet demand." if your goal is to be an interchangeable widget that produces value as part of a corporate machine that exists for the enrichment of your shareholders, you are certainly free to choose that path, but don't imagine that is the limit of human existence. also, don't be surprise when you are replaced by AI, because it is a superior widget.
> nobody who has ever achieved notoriety in any intellectual field ever did it to "meet demand."
John von Neumann generated a prodigious amount of math specifically to meet demand, on demand, under govt contracts, world changing things. Some of it was fundamental in getting computers into use.
Newton (and Leibniz) invented calculus to address current astronomical problems, a contemporary demand.
Fourier invented Fourier series to meet the demand of engineering heat flow.
Heisenberg, Dirac, Born, etc. invented the formalisms of quantum mechanics specifically to meet the demand of experimental methods.
Many of these were paid by contemporaneous need to solve significant commercial value problems.
Theres tons of counter examples to your claim. So much so it’s hard to believe you’d make such a claim.
metalspot · · focus · HN ↗
echelon · · focus · HN ↗
That's nonsense. Of course you study them to meet demand.
metalspot · · focus · HN ↗
nobody who has ever achieved notoriety in any intellectual field ever did it to "meet demand." if your goal is to be an interchangeable widget that produces value as part of a corporate machine that exists for the enrichment of your shareholders, you are certainly free to choose that path, but don't imagine that is the limit of human existence. also, don't be surprise when you are replaced by AI, because it is a superior widget.
SideQuark · · focus · HN ↗
John von Neumann generated a prodigious amount of math specifically to meet demand, on demand, under govt contracts, world changing things. Some of it was fundamental in getting computers into use.
Newton (and Leibniz) invented calculus to address current astronomical problems, a contemporary demand.
Fourier invented Fourier series to meet the demand of engineering heat flow.
Heisenberg, Dirac, Born, etc. invented the formalisms of quantum mechanics specifically to meet the demand of experimental methods.
Many of these were paid by contemporaneous need to solve significant commercial value problems.
Theres tons of counter examples to your claim. So much so it’s hard to believe you’d make such a claim.