Ask HN: Who gets credits on big math questions solved by LLMs? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Who gets credits on big math questions solved by LLMs?

9 pointssilentmafia7 comments

E.g. what if someone prompts an LLM to solve the Riemann hypothesis using this or that approach; and the model actually solves it. Who gets the prize?

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A months ago headlines read that ChatGPT “solved” an 80 year old Erdős problem.

I found Cal Newport’s take on this to be much more balanced. From what I remember, ChatGPT didn’t “solve” anything. It dumped out a bunch of text, that humans reviewed, and it gave them an idea for how to disprove a thing Erdős thought was true, but couldn’t prove.

https://youtu.be/fhZRWZ6J4k4

In cases like this, it seemed like the LLM got a lot more credit than it deserved. So I’m guessing it would go something like that.

LLMs are increasingly solving math problems on their own, producing entire correct proofs

I like Cal but his takes consistently miss the slope of improvement of the technology

Yes, it's hard to tell what is real here because the AI labs are clearly engaging in extensive marketing and advertising to shape public perception. They need people to believe that these tools are more capable and more competent than they really are. It's also important that they control the narrative and push out counter-narratives that would hurt public perception of the tool, etc. tldr they are actively trying to manage the hype cycle.

The (boring) answer to "who gets the prize?" is whoever the CMI decides gets the prize.

https://www.claymath.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/millenni...

LLMs are advanced tools , not creators. Just as we don't credit our computer or IDE as co-authors when writing code, we shouldn't credit AI for an engineer's or Math or any type work. If we start crediting tools, we'd logically have to credit the entire tech stack behind them.

1) Probably the guy/gal that wrote the prompt. I expect for now that in most case the AI needs some babysitting (like babysitting a PhD student).

2) Who pays the piper calls the tune.

Euler

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