Comment by bonplan23
3 hours ago
After AI more or less “solved” large parts of mathematics overnight and literally broke the internet by uncovering decades-old PHP vulnerabilities, you still think this is a hype that’s cooling off?
To me, this mostly shows how much our baseline for what counts as “noteworthy” has shifted since ChatGPT came out. I’ve seen more disruptive events in the last couple of years than in the 30 before that.
What would it take to get you excited again? AI discovering that aliens exist?
Isn’t that the point though - they’ve generated such strong results in mathematics, so why now are they delivering something so weak here?
Hype rather than realistic attempts to solve things is actually a valid explanation for that. They want to give the impression it’s a solve-everything machine even if it’s not well suited to areas outside of CS and math (or really anything where the logic of what is being done is not 1:1 with syntax, which is where LLMs are clearly excelling)
> So why now are they delivering something so weak here?
Was anyone under the impression that AI would, in its very first attempt at biological research, suddenly be able to get answers without having to need physical follow-through on its leads? Even if AI had a hypothetical cure for cancer, it would need a human with cancer and a biolab and governmental approval to actually do anything with it.
The nature of biology makes the feedback loops much larger and more expensive, which means the AI has to follow the "normal" collaborative scientific process instead of being able to hunker down in its proverbial study and work all night.
> AI discovering that aliens exist?
I wonder if this would turn even the most stalwart opponents around.
I could see discussion about such an announcement focusing on exactly what qualifies as an "alien."