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by bjt5 hours ago |
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upvoteby trhway2 hours ago|
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Do we support people who are intentionally not using GPS and are still using paper maps? Or even the people who do it without any maps, just from their memory?

Do we support people who aren't using vaccines and are intentionally infecting themselves directly (measles parties)?

Do we support people who are intentionally using axe instead of chainsaw? Police officers and stormtroopers who are intentionally using knife instead of a gun?

With civilization and technology we do loose some mental capabilities - like say the part of the brain Amazonian people use for extremely skillful face recognition we do use for reading/writing while loosing that face recognition skill level that those people in the jungle have. So goes the medieval way of doing mathematics (it is a pity though - I liked it and hoped that mathematics will fall among the last, yet it happened to be among the firsts)

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upvoteby defrost1 hours ago|
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Weird questions.

> Do we support people who are intentionally not using GPS and are still using paper maps? Or even the people who do it without any maps, just from their memory?

Yes. We do - it's a sport from way back and ongoing - a good many people want to retain non GPS navigational skills.

> Do we support people who are intentionally using axe instead of chainsaw? Police officers and stormtroopers who are intentionally using knife instead of a gun?

Yes. We do. Proficiency in multiple weapons and non weapon combat is a basic part of service training. Axes and wedges still have their place in tree felling.

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upvoteby w4der1 hours ago|
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You are making your argument on the basis that LLMs and future AI system will be just as good or better as current mathematicians at all the relevant processes involved in academic math and mathematics in general. I'd like to see an experiment where an AI system was trained as a 1870s mathematician and see if it can come up with set theory, if that is not possible, then current AI systems are not fit to replace mathematicians.
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upvoteby trhway1 hours ago|
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>where an AI system was trained as a 1870s mathematician and see if it can come up with set theory

a car or a future starship wouldn't climb a tree better than ancient human.

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upvoteby w4der1 hours ago|
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The hell is that reply? If we're obsoleting human mathematicians, which have fundamentally been the same thing brains-wise since forever, why shouldn't an AI system be able to replace a 1870s mathematician in the same way you are proposing it replace a 2020s mathematician?
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upvoteby trhway1 hours ago|
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>which have fundamentally been the same thing brains-wise since forever

and you don't see any issue here? When it takes people 2 years to understand a proof it means that the old ways are done, they hit cul-de-sac. Like in many situations, it is the highest point as well as it is a crisis at the same time.

>why shouldn't an AI system be able to replace a 1870s mathematician

my point isn't that whether it would be able to replace - i think it would. My point is that it doesn't matter. The tool is needed for the 2020s math with those proofs taking 2 years, not for the 1870s math with proofs fitting a several pages letter.

That is math of 1870s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cefn-coed-y-cymmer#/media/File... and that is what we need in 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huajiang_Canyon_Bridge#/media/...

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upvoteby w4der40 minutes ago|
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I am not debating IA's capabilities at coming up with proofs, I'm debating whether such systems will be able to figure out new mathematical fields or not. If they can't figure out some field from what was known at the time, what guarantees are there that AI-mathematics won't just bog down at its current state? There must be some evidence that AI can come up with novel mathematics before we decide to throw academics out the window. The risk of creating a sort of mathematical dark age just based on the current situation is far too great to stop funding mathematics research.
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upvoteby xigoi1 hours ago|
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If GPS required you to pay hundreds of dollars per month to criminal companies, most people would still be using paper maps.
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upvoteby spacebanana711 minutes ago|
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Assuming paper maps were the only alternative - absolutely yes. I probably would, and least on a pro rata basis for bigger weekend trips in unfamiliar areas.
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upvoteby trhway1 hours ago|
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That exactly illustrates the way of technology - the first commercial GPS receivers cost $3000, and of course people used the paper maps back then, yet technology prices have always been going down (temporary RAM crunches notwithstanding :)
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upvoteby xigoi1 hours ago|
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The difference is that the inventors of GPS didn’t deliberately buy out the entire world’s supply of GPS receivers so that no more could be sold to ordinary people.
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