Comment by aaraujo002
1 day ago
The Advisory Group states in its recommendations [1]:
"We want to state clearly from the start: we do not endorse this practice, and we ask them to stop testing advanced mathematical problems on proprietary models."
To me, this is a take against progress so that mathematicians can keep their jobs. What would we do if, instead of math, we were talking about diseases? Are we going to keep diseases around so that doctors can keep their jobs too?
Why did you leave out the entire quote?
> At present, some frontier AI labs are testing advanced mathematical problems on proprietary models that remain inaccessible to the broader scientific community. Our recommendations are formulated with this practical context in mind. However, ideally, they would not do so. We want to state clearly from the start: we do not endorse this practice, and we ask them to stop testing advanced mathematical problems on proprietary models.
To me, the issue is that the models are proprietary which are only accessible to a few people in 2 digits. It's not about progress but access.
Maybe, but it still seems like an excuse. OpenAI has a proprietary model capable of solving these problems and is willing to share the results with the mathematical community. So basically, the ask is to just not use the model and leave the problems unsolved?
The ask is to let mathematicians outside of OpenAI use it, ie. at least wait until the model is released.
6 replies →
The work is not having AI poop out these docs the work is validating them and publishing them. OpenAI doesn’t care and wanted to race to publish potential findings and let others review it which is lazy and selfish
I don't think this is a reasonable take at all. Most work on maths has no real benefit other than to further human understanding of maths - it's more like an art. Nothing is gained from OpenAI solving all these problems but taking jobs from mathematicians. Other than advertising for OpenAI at least. It could not be more different from having AI work on disease research etc.
> Most work on maths has no real benefit other than to further human understanding of maths - it's more like an art.
It's been a while since I was reminded of this xkcd: https://xkcd.com/435/
Most math isn't just proving novel famous results. Just like most of software engineering isn't writing code.
It all hinges on the definition of “progress”. The debate of the past month is all about questioning whether formally proving outstanding unproven theorems without human understanding constitutes progress. This is quite different from solving diseases.
without humans understanding who are currently losing entitlement. Regular Joe could never understand or claimed to understand high math.
The rest of that document makes a pretty compelling case for why this is a bad practice
I fear that professional mathematics will wither, and there will be nobody left to digest the AI results of the future, leaving us unable to challenge the AI.
Then make 2 AI's and force them to challenge each other.
Comical ask
Advocating purely for progress and not humanitarian value is how we'll all get enslaved.
The trope you're drawing a parallel with has a (to me) compelling counter though: there being a cure for every disease wouldn't stop people from getting sick.
How this maps back to math, idk.
The latest posts from Terry Tao on Mastodon effectively ask for an AI to explain its results to human mathematicians.
> "I believe that AI can contribute positively in all of these directions [NB: exposition, community building, new directions of study]"
https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao/117395269325940185
There are a dozen+ AIs available to you that can do that right now.
...but we're not talking about diseases. Publishing an AI-generated Navier-Stokes solution does not save lives. (And, in fact, it harms some.)
It harms lives? How so?
Many mathematicians I know are shaken or depressed by these news of machiines that might put them out of business. Especially those who don't have tenure yet.