Comment by RomanPushkin
7 hours ago
I hope OpenAI will prove its usefulness in stealing joy from mathematicians, engineers, and biologists this time. It feels like there's a chance of warmer feedback this time from everyone out there keeping an eye on what they do.
Personally I would forgive all of the joy being stolen by AI if they discover something fundamental and outstanding that would help all of us.
> stealing joy from mathematicians, engineers, and biologists
This is the weakest possible rationalization against the AI takeover. Solving real world problems isn’t “stealing joy”. Those problems shouldn’t be gatekept. It paints our scientists as rent seekers.
This comment totally misunderstands why scientists get into science. Let me tell you, it isn't the money. It is for the joy of exploring the frontier. LLM's are taking this from us. Maybe they will be better than us but I'm not sure how many scientists will get into science for the joy of being an understudy to an LLM.
Yes, exploration is exactly why I enjoy research. Knowledge is, after all, the final frontier.
(Space is NOT the final frontier; sorry Trekkies. The real barrier to space is the ability to traverse non-trivial expanses of space in human time, and that will only be solved by Science.)
And when it comes to AI in research, we have just been handed a relativistic starship to explore the boundaries of our knowledge, instead of the paddle boats we've been using all this time. I would choose to adapt and try to harness this new power rather than mourn the loss of paddling.
It doesn’t misunderstand, it just treats that as irrelevant, which it is.
8 replies →
I understood them to be arguing that AI models are taking away the joy of certain things like mathematics but not producing commensurate value for humanity. We have a lower bound on twin primes, but that doesn't improve life for anybody, and the cost of getting the bound was removing human involvement from a lot of mathematical research, which was a source of joy for some portion of the human race. If all of this leads to curing major diseases without an AI takeover, it will have been worth it. But if it doesn't, then the ends don't necessarily justify the means.
> Solving real world problems isn’t “stealing joy”
Well, pretty good amount of the training data was stolen. Not only from the repositories without a license, but also archives of books, and they even steal training from each other. Funny enough, they still blame each other for stealing. I don't mind if you think your joy is not stolen. But I mind if you insist when your opinion is the only right one and joy has definitely not been stolen. It's quite sensitive territory starts here, and I don't think anyone (incl.yourself) has a right to speak for everyone in that regard.
I keep hearing these analogies to "rent seekers" - particularly with mathematics.
I just don't understand it. No mathematician would be upset if a total amateur solves a centuries old problem - even one they've worked their whole life on. They cheer and celebrate it.
Nor do they oppose the spread of math knowledge.
Nor do they have high salaries. Nurses make more.
Where is the "rent seeking"?
“AI shouldn’t make groundbreaking advancements because the scientists who otherwise wanted to make those advancements feel sad”.
All those scientists can go pound sand as far as I am concerned. I don’t give a shit about “joy” I care about curing diseases and solving the universe’s mysteries. If AI can get us there faster then I’m 100% for it.
Until there are no more scientists...
> I don’t give a shit about “joy”
Exactly. Fuck these selfish pieces of shit for delaying me getting administered heroin in a cube until the heat death of the universe.
> I don’t give a shit about “joy”
> solving the universe’s mysteries.
What do you get out of solving the universe's mysteries then? Ennui?
Hopefully not dying with an insufferable disease.