vouaobrasil

Not exactly, because we would have cool people to inspire us and hang out with us.

But your argument is nonsensical because even if Gauss and von Neumann appeared, they wouldn't go into random fields and just prove things mechanically. They'd have to attend seminars, teach others, collaborate with others, and generally inspire others with their brilliance. It's the precise lack of this activity that makes AI in math so reprehensible.

Your argument encapsulates a contradiction because human mathematicians wouldn't be dropping proofs arbitrarily like AI is doing. They would do something completely different. Even the best of them.

I don't think more people playing is necessarily a good thing for the enjoyment of the game in the long run, just like more people with phones is not necessarily a good thing for enjoying photography if it means photography is primarily used as fuel for social media algorithms.

Of course Magnus would crush be, but the existence of the best player in the world doesn't have any impact on the health of the game community as a whole. Magnus would crush me even if he had never used a computer, but in the latter case I think his games against other players would be more interesting as well.

This sort of thing highlights the most dangerous thing about a high-tech society: people will do ANYTHING to cure a disease they or their loved ones have, even if it means an existential risk that we often have the ability of instantiating.

Obviously not worth it, but to the person who themselves face an existential risk, the level of absurd justification from the instinct to survive will always trump sanity.

Yes, as a matter of fact it has been studied. For instance:

1. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads9158?referrer...

2. https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/mirror-life-experiment-d...

The detailed thinking has been published in high-ranking journals like Science. And even if the risk is relatively small, isn't that already a good enough reason not to cross this border. Do we have to fucking discover everything? Don't we have enough already?

The craziness of some people who want to know everything is beyond my comprehension.

Arguably, I think AI would not even exist without capitalism because it's only the arms-race scenario that has made it somewhat viable. Otherwise we wouldn't be foolish enough to waste energy on this shit.

Killing with knives has always been a thing. Now, we have the machine gun.

> Let's hypothetically say I'm a PHD student who is half way through my studies and I have a halfway written version of one of these "preprints" - what do I do?

I did get my PhD...before AI. And my honest advice (to myself back then, even) would be: quit the PhD, become an electrician, and work hard to buy a tiny house in the middle of nowhere to watch the world burn in this madness.

I think giving the world a "cheat code" to accomplish too many intellectual tasks will eventually take its toll on us because after relegating most of our physical labour to machines, we could at least marvel at the abilities of individuals.

Yes, human beings can do more now in some ways but...to put it poetically, I think there will be no more heroes like Einstein and Newton of the past. Now it will just be someone cleverly turning the crank.

Yes, we still admire Usain Bolt even though we have cars...but maybe the admiration is a lot more trivial than if we did not have them....

Personally, I think AI is a grand mistake.

It didn't destroy chess but it did make it a little irritating in some ways. More mechanical. Some chess players have bemoaned the level to which grandmasters and other highly-ranked players just endlessly study opening-book theory and I think computers made that worse. Bobby Fischer also agreed and that's why he invented Fischer random chess.

I do think it also took some of the magic away from chess, and Lee Sedol has said something similar about go.

So did it destroy it? No. And maybe you could make the argument that it got more exciting in some ways, but I think it sort of degenerated into a spectacle and it's just not as interesting as it used to be, and I think computers have played a role in that.

> Am I the only one who finds the hubris in this sentence chilling? Surely there's absolutely no way that we can be sure of the impact on the ecosystem of eradicating an entire species? And more so, surely we just can't be that confident of something like that when we have so little understanding of the complexities of most ecosystems mosquitos exist in.

I agree with you. But most people here care more about their convenience and have the money to offset the problems caused by what humans are doing, so they don't care at all. They're too addicted to feeding their own curiosity with shiny new tech that they've lost any empathy for the rest of the world.

You don't need a sharp line. Just cut off the worst parts. A clear definition of an enemy is not needed to decimate one.

> I really wish there'd be a split among these disciplines (science/math/code vs. videos/art/literature) - one is vastly more problematic than the other.

I disagree that they can be separated. Practically, I think they can't. Because the mere invention of new tools inspires even more AI advancement and that in turn will cause the other side (artistic side) to degenerate even more.

I'm anti-LLM all the way, 100%, no exceptions. Zero tolerance.

Encourage poeple to have a simpler life by using less technology, maybe? Stop inventing so much stuff and return to stronger, smaller communities? Use less AI? Take a few days away from the internet every week?

I believe in people, not tech. Tech past a certain point just makes things worse and always goes beyond a point of diminishing returns where its innovation becomes a mere arms race.

Yeah right. And do we really want to see another arms race? It's never a good thing for humanity.... It's clear from human interactions that the greedy and selfish usually have a leg up compared to those who have good intentions.

Speaking as a mathematician (or at least a former one) math has (at least from my perspective) become quite industrial and drab already. Most of the most interesting stuff has been solved already and a lot of it is just and endless race to generalize to stuff that interests in reality, very few. AI seems like the next stage in this process to me.

> It will grow into a full-scale industry and become the true infrastructure of all scientific and technological progress, a foundation that every other field stands on rather than a quiet corner of academia.

Sounds revolting. Everything being turned into the industry is soulless and uninspiring. I know a lot of people worship this future but I for one hate it. I for one don't see the point in creating this intellectual power where there will always, always be someone to abuse it simply because of our instinct to be greedy.

But AI can certainly aid in the ending of humanity with at least one living being with a will collaborating with it. So it's moot to ask whether AI can do that on its own.

Many people pursue knowledge precisely because it's still something new that no one else has done and because it is valued as a pursuit. When AI normalizes the discovery of knowledge as a mechanical process, the magic is lost to many. What matters is not what is discovered but the human process of doing that and participating in a culture amongst other living beings.

The thing is, it's not about making anything easier to understand. It's about padding academic CVs with something new.

Because the goal isn't to make the future better for humanity. It's to make the future more addictive for humanity. Big difference. More clicks, more ad views, more engagement, not necessarily more pleasant. I mean, that's obvious.

True, eradicated is a strong word and I do think it should be. And as horrible as a cataclysm is, I think it's still going to be less pain for humanity than going forward with this tech.

What the heck? Python is a joy to program in and it's great for making small utilies, scripts, and even programs that don't require incredible performance. Perl is a pretty horrific-looking language.

The problem here is that AI isn't just a problem, it also revealed a problem: too much emphasis on publishing papers and churning out new results. The name of the game right now is just that: make something new and significant. AI itelf is a problem around the world right now because we've set up some seriously bad incentives. Same with art - it devolved into content creation for money, so AI snaps that up.

What we need to do is make mathematics about understanding, rather than churning out results. People should be rewarded for reaching an ability to explain mathematics without the aid of computers, to teach people for the sake of their learning.

I do think AI also needs to be eradicated because of its destructive properties, but I think that at the same time it also is a manifestation of the sickness in our society to go after the wrong incentives that are detrimental in the long run.

No way. Mathematicians don't assume things to be true even if there are no counterexamples.

I agree, if he were talking about programming a game. But he's not. He's talking about how to have fun from a priveleged position....

If Carmack said, "you're wrong in your game design, here's how to do it instead", yeah I'd listen. Same as if Kasparov gave me chess advice. But if Kasparov said, "AI won't take the fun away from chess" then how the hell does he have any expertise on that when he's spent the majority of his chess career without AI. Let's keep in mind that he made it to world champion before Deep Blue beat him.

True. I agree. But I think it's also not very nice of AI programmers to actively work to take that fun away. And part of the skill of keeping a job fun is working against those who do attempt to take the fun away.

We know animals have consciousness and many species have a rich life but we slaughter them and burn down their homes by the millions of hectares. Why not do it with a conscious AI?

(I don't think AI is conscious, just following the argument.)

In general, society is experience a decoupling of fun from work. I can't say I enjoy every aspect of my job, but it's nice to enjoy some of it, and lots of people do find a lot of their job at least somewhat rewarding.

People who hate their job of course like to come out of the woodwork and say no one should enjoy it, but isn't it nice to have a society where at least some people can enjoy their work? I used to enjoy teaching but I'd never get a teaching job now because of how AI is being used in that sector.

Technophiles will say that we should embrace the future because its inevitable but how many good people quitting does it take before they realize that a vibe-coded future of fun isn't all there is to life?

> Sure, but some proofs are so complex that even experts can't follow them.

If that's the case then I don't see much reason for them to exist in the first place except mental one-upmanship.

From their website:

"Mila is a community of more than 1,400 researchers specializing in machine learning and dedicated to scientific excellence and innovation."

They're also strong proponents of AI and integrating AI into society. They're just as bad as the AI companies themselves.