Comment by staticassertion
6 days ago
I actually still don't see the source for them trying several times, but we can take that for granted. Regardless, as I said:
1. It's labeled as "moderately interesting"
2. They said that they expect an expert could solve it in 1-3 months
3. They had already come up with the solution that the AI had but weren't convinced it would have worked
So how big was the gap here, do you think?
Yes, a "moderately interesting" Open problem.
I can't think of any chores that would take an expert months to complete. I can't think of any chores that I've completed but was then 'unconvinced could work'. Please sit down and think about what you are saying here. Are we still talking about chores ?
One of the more strange phenomena with machines getting better and the incessant need (seemingly driven by human exceptionalism) to downplay each result, is that you just end up belittling humans in the process.
This is significant. Your analogy is wrong. It's fine to admit it.
Writing a complex parser or certainly a compiler is a 1 - 3 month project, for example.
Again, I'm not trying to downplay this, but to frame this accurately. I think an AI being able to build a parser/ compiler is cool too.
> One of the more strange phenomena with machines getting better and the incessant need (seemingly driven by human exceptionalism) to downplay each result, is that you just end up belittling humans in the process.
I don't believe in human exceptionalism at all, don't attribute positions to me.
>Writing a complex parser or certainly a compiler is a 1 - 3 month project, for example.
1. Estimating time completion of something that has been done multiple times before and an open problem that has not yet been solved is a different matter entirely. 1 to 3 months is an educated guess and more likely than not, an underestimate.
2. I do not think months long complex compilers and parsers are being routinely completed by LLMs as your original comment implied. Regardless, they are different classes of problems.
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Also, the full write up does not say the researchers solved it.
> I had previously wondered if the AI’s approach might be possible, but it seemed hard to work out.
They didn't solve it, that's fair. They did consider the approach already.