yaqubroli

So Pareto’s the third brother then?

The human provides the intention and the ability to appreciate the output. Tools do “heavy lifting” all the time, but we still primarily credit the humans who use them precisely because they made the choice to use them.

Provability is just going the way of computation. John Napier had to manually compute logarithm tables over decades and was recognised for his work; now that same work could be performed by a 10 year old with a calculator in an evening.

> “Even if AI can prove theorems and theory-craft more efficiently than humans, and even if these proofs and theories are beautiful and interesting, and even if they are presented with elegance and clarity of thought, mathematicians will still have a place in the appraisal, presentation, understanding and appreciation of this new abundance of pleasing non-human proofs. We can still practice mathematics, learn mathematics, teach mathematics and do mathematics together.”

I am not a mathematician, but this seems like an entirely non-problematic answer to me. Mathematics is ultimately the discovery of relations and their consequences, so of course large language models were eventually going to catch up. But precisely what they do lack is ability to appreciate these relations.

The author says mathematics is a spiritual pursuit.[1] I have asked LLMs about theological topics before and they have also been able to produce perfectly cogent answers (even heavy questions like “how did Aquinas view Pseudo-Dionysius’ negation-laden description of God”). I am not the least bit shaken by this, because it is still on me to evaluate and understand, and appreciate these answers.[2] The author seems to think LLM’s pattern recognition makes redundant human understanding and appreciation, which is a logical leap that doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe the author is conflating utility and purpose? I feel bad, and hope the author takes care of themself, but I really think the author is taking a massive leap here. It is not that deep.

[1] I begrudgingly agree, but with the caveat that tending to a vegetable garden in your backyard is also a spiritual pursuit. Mathematics isn’t some special discipline that elevates you beyond other people, as much as it is useful and interesting.

[2] I of course wouldn’t consult an LLM if I actually wanted to educate myself or reason about these topics. Not only do I want to reason through them myself, but when it comes to issues in philosophy/theology/heavy stuff, you need to take in to account the perspective and experiences of the human writing them. LLMs muddle everyone’s perspective together.

They also have a shit shopping centre and a big Asda, so really they’ve got everything

“Orange santa” in Chinese would be pretty unwieldy as a nickname. “橙黄圣诞老人” is 6 syllables.

But there has been a meme in China for ages that Trump is secretly a Chinese guy named “Chuan Jianguo” (Jianguo means “building the nation”) who was sent by China to destroy America from within.

Initially I was very confused; why would a socialist magazine have an article about the JVM?

…Japan?

Zoomer, born in 2002. I'd be in favour of something like this; it's important to note that the problem, 99% of the time, isn't "games." Nobody plays games. It mostly serves as a sort of "comfort-blanket" people turn to when they're anxious; distractions are generated passively, and often have a reassuring effect. Most people younger than me will acknowledge that "scrolling" is something that often has a hold on their life, and feels outside of their control. To a large extent, it's probably informed larger culture (short-form content has increased people's focus on "vibes" and "aesthetics").

Often times, the anxiety is the beginning of a cycle that inhibits learning (people turn to their devices for anxiety-relief in math class, causing them to learn less math, causing them to be more anxious about math, and suddenly there is an increase in "math anxiety" except for the small minority socialised into math from a young age)

If I had a gameboy (as some others in this thread mention) on me in middle/high school, I'd be at least engaging with something where the input informs the output, probably realise it's not worth the effort, and start paying attention to class.

It's also worth noting that social media platforms are expressly designed to not be understood; you don't actually learn anything about technology or gain an interest in computing by watching Reels; it's not like the teachers are the dumb ones and the kids are all discussing the merits of glibc vs musl on IRC or something

I understand that HN is mostly inhabited by those from a more techno-optimist era when most administrative positions were held by boomers who thought that the monitor was the computer, but this isn't that. This is qualitatively different.

Glykon was a man - no, he was a snake-god-man - or maybe he was just a snake god. But he was still Glykon!