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Comment by adastra22 | Hacker News Reader

Publish in academic language means accepted peer-reviewed paper.

https://www.experimental-history.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-...

Not sure what your point is? When they say published they mean peer review. Regardless of what you think about publication, that's what it means.

Unless you're suggesting they should change the existing qualification criteria to accommodate a group unwilling to play by the same rules as everyone else, I'm not sure why that's relevant.

I run this journal that you've never heard of that might interest you. I'd also like to invite you to be an editor, you can put it on your CV of course ...

Seems like artificial and maybe bitter gatekeeping

For giving away a million bucks, you get to gatekeep however you choose.

But no, peer reviewed and published in a reputable journal is a fairly normal standard.

And just to spell it out, since it looks like HackerNews is flooded by people who are new to science these days: even if a result doesn't come with a price, scholarly peer review is the norm across all of science: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholarly_peer_review

This is a good reminder for the generation grown up in the era of trust-me-bro benchmarks.

Being normal doesn't necessarily mean it isn't gatekeeping- gatekeeping is also quite "normal" in many cases.

That being said, I think there needs to be some standard, and peer review seems like the best we have come up with. But is the current status quo for scientific publication the best we can do? I think that is an open question and we should be able to openly discuss alternatives.

"Is it the best we can do?" is a completely different question from "given that it's the current standard, should it be applied to this new claim that is happening now?"

The whole "reputable" marker is where it gets into "True Scotsman" territory

and the whole "publishing papers" thing gets called out as a racket even on HN now and then

with many videos against it by former "academia" people on YouTube.

The sooner AI brings down such archaic customs into a gibbering pile of protesting rubble, the better innit?

Depends. What replaces it? Does that replacement do better at keeping false claims out, or worse? Does it do better at letting true claims through, or worse?

One thing's for certain: True and false should not depend on convincing people.

Instead of a committee of subject matter experts they should use a more rigorous and trustworthy standard, like passing the solution to ChatGPT with the prompt "did this win?"

Real true or false - which I define as correspondence (or lack thereof) with reality - does not depend on convincing people. Reality does not change when people become convinced; ideas correspond to reality whether people are convinced or not.

But perceived truth and falsehood depend on convincing people - either convincing them one by one, or else convincing some gatekeeper, whose word will convince those who accept the gatekeeper.

So if an AI proves something but ""rEpUtAbLe"" papers refuse to publish it just on grounds of it being AI, does that make it not true?

You know in the past women (and other marginalized people) weren't allowed to publish scientific papers for the majority of human history?

Is this how you want your "truth" to be?

If so then man, no sympathy; these institutions deserve to be broken down. Let them spaz on the floor and throw tantrums all they want.

... marginalized people ...

... spaz on the floor ...

Accepted by whom? Peer-reviewed by whom?

I guess these little questions are what this article is really about.

> “The ultimate decision as to whether a publication qualifies as a “Qualifying Outlet” shall reside in the sole and unfettered discretion of CMI.”

By peers.

Peer in peer-reviewed is a logical coherent and functional definition with answers.

The logical issue with 'peers' is how to bootstrap it. At that bootstrap moment you can ask "by whom?". We are several centuries past that moment.

The cultural/social question you might ask today is "why (keep) them?".

At which point people will naturally ask you to make a strong case for "why not them?".

> The logical issue with 'peers' is how to bootstrap it. At that bootstrap moment you can ask "by whom?". We are several centuries past that moment.

Huh? We're about six decades past that moment.

> Peer in peer-reviewed is a logical coherent and functional definition with answers.

What is the definition? If you tell me that, then I might be able to tell you if it is logical coherent and functional, I have a PhD in computational logic.

Amongst all this rhetorical brush-beating, what were you trying to teach the snakes?

Your (many) replies on this topic are being down voted for a reason; please either post substantive comments or stop.

Yes, for a reason, but not a reasonable reason, but the same reason you have for your comment: you just don’t know any better.

> I have a PhD in computational logic.

And you don't know how the peer-review system works?

Just a hunch but Claude saying your work is "PhD level" does not count

I know that it doesn't work.

Something like this sketch work for you?

peer(X, 0) :- founding_peer(X).

electorate(T, count<Y>) :- peer(Y, T).

support(X, T, count<Y>) :- candidate(X), peer(Y, T), recognizes(Y, X, T+1).

peer(X, T+1) :- support(X, T, Votes), electorate(T, Total), 2 * Votes > Total.

Still waiting for a definition. People giving nonsense reviews is a feature of the peer review system though, yes.

I want to ensure your PhD is actually from somebody who is acknowledged in the system of peers I bought into, before I want to risk wasting more of my time defining and explain while guessing at your ability to parse and understand them.

Or you could just give me a sensible definition.

Presumably the organization giving away the million dollars is the arbiter of that question.

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