Comment by 0c3ca83
18 hours ago
For now, there's plenty of mathematics that hasn't been enshittified by AI bros.
For this work, you're either inserting coins into Codex, effectively donating money, or you're shoveling your way through the slop that the purchasers of that repo couldn't be bothered to clean up themselves.
> For this work, you're either inserting coins into Codex, effectively donating money
Rather: as a necessary evil you give money to OpenAI/Anthropic because you really want to see (ideally fast) progress on this mathematical/algorithmic problem.
That's like saying "you love cooking, so for fast progress you insert coins into doordash to make fast progress on a meal". If you do that, you don't love cooking.
It's fundamentally incongruous with someone that "loves the game". And I hope that you have a good excuse for ruining it, hopefully a seven or eight figure excuse.
> That's like saying "you love cooking, so for fast progress you insert coins into doordash to make fast progress on a meal". If you do that, you don't love cooking.
Rather, it's like saying "I love eating good food."
One approach is to learn to cook excellently, buy high-quality ingredients etc. Then invest time to cook a delicious meal. This is like learning math, becoming exceptional in one area, and then work on the problem.
Another approach is to go to a well-rated restaurant, order some food there, and pay a decent amount of money for the food. This is like buying AI tokens, and setting up some agents to work on math problems.
Both approaches are suitable. And I guess/hope many people who really would love to contribute to progress in mathematics would really prefer to go the first way. But because
- they are not highly gifted
- have a time-consuming daily job and/or family
- simply cannot afford the high opportunity cost to get to a suitable level in math
- ...
the only way such people can contribute to progress in math is the second approach. That's why these people behave like they do.
I am quite confident that most of such contributors don't like that their money lands in the hands of OpenAI/Anthropic.
So: Which approach would you recommend these people who are really eager to contribute to progress on some mathematical problems?
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