Comment by hansvm
15 hours ago
Not a counterpoint per se, but I burned $50k recently on a much more modest math problem (result already known, just thought I had a sketch of a more interesting proof), and the LLM thought it had proved it within those bounds but had instead subtly fucked up the Lean definition. Take from that what you will.
Not to mention, it's still very much up in the air whether the model derived the answer of its own accord or sniped the important details from the researchers it was spying on.
But the researchers also did their research using essentially the same models, so that isn’t a counterpoint to AI models being at the far frontier…
> not a counterpoint
>> isn't a counterpoint
Where do we disagree?
How can you afford to burn $50k on an already solved problem?
Those are two separate questions:
> How can I afford?
Mostly not my money, tech makes one fabulously wealthy, I care more about math than fast cars or whatever (even as a pizza driver you can afford a fancy car if that's your primary motive), etc.
> Already solved
That's a very interesting insight into mathematics. It's absolutely just as interesting to prove that certain proof techniques are or aren't possible as it is to actually prove the main result, sometimes moreso, especially if they have any chance of improving attacks at other problems.