Hacker News Reader

Comment by CamperBob2 | Hacker News Reader

Let's get an English major to take a calculator to the International Math Olympiad, and see how that goes.

So a sign of AGI or intelligence on par with human is the ability to solve small generic math problems? And it still requires a handler human level intellinge to be paired with, to even start solving those math problems? Is that about right?

Not even close to right. First of all, the "small generic math problems" given at IMO are designed to challenge the strongest students in the world, and second, the recent results have been based on zero-shot prompts. The human operator did nothing but type in the questions and hit Enter.

If you do not understand the core concepts very well, by any rational definition of "understand," then you will not succeed at competitions like IMO. A calculator alone won't help you with math at this level, any more than a scalpel by itself would help you succeed at brain surgery.

It may be difficult for you to believe or digest, but this means nothing for actual innovation. Im yet to see the effects of LLMs send a shockwave in the real economy.

Ive actually hung around Olympiad level folks and unfortunately, their reach of intellect was limited in specific ways that didnt mean anything in regards to the real economy.

You seem to be arguing with someone who isn't here. My point is that if you think a calculator is going to help you do math you don't understand, you are going to have a really tough time once you get to 10th grade.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com