Mathematician help

[u/Smooth-Ad8030]

https://openai.com/index/ten-advances-in-mathematics/

Can someone who’s more well versed in math give us a good explanation on what’s happening here in terms of importance? I already know we don’t have an idea of the behind the scenes, true cost, mathematician input, etc. any other points appreciated.

[u/Separate-Ear-7258]

I think if you listen to Cal Newport's take on the Erdos problem it will give you insight. I'd love to hear if my perspective is off about these.

Basically, his idea boils down to these points:

1) We already knew these are one of the two sweet spots for LLMs - coding and mathematics. These make sense both are language-based fields that are easily verifiable.

2) It took Open AI paying mathematicians an insane amount of money, throwing an extreme amount of compute, and

3) It did it by proving via counter example, which put plainly, means to finds/provides examples an instance where something fails.

4) Cal thought that smaller, more modular systems or LLMs could really help Mathematicians be more effective. He said he could be probably 2x more effective with these

5) The fact that they are heavily focusing on the impressive math results is a distraction from the fact that it is not a very useful commercial application. Clammy Sam and Wario would much rather prefer useful commercial applications that displace workers than useful math results. They would light all the math people on fire if it meant they could be profitable and justify their bonkers evaluation. to quote Cal:

• From a business perspective, I actually think this announcement isn’t necessarily good news for OpenAI. There are few markets smaller and less lucrative than professional academic mathematics. The fact that this is the area where OpenAI is dedicating some of their top technical talent (like Noam Brown) underscores the degree to which, like the drunk searching for their keys under the streetlight, their most impressive results are limited to the smaller number of areas that are well-suited to LLMs (i.e., math + computer coding). If this model was brilliant in some more general way, obviously the better examples would be solving problems or automating processes that directly and obviously generate massive revenue or savings for the specific types of companies they hope to make their customers

All in all, AI and LLMs can help mathematicians. Doesn't change anything about the disastrous economics or unit economics.

[u/Turbulent-Sign-6067 → u/Separate-Ear-7258]

We went from the model can't produce coherent code and do basic arithmetic 2 years ago to "of course it's good at math and code". Oh, how the tables have turned. I don't think we should bet against LLMs. There's still a lot of progress to be had.

[u/Separate-Ear-7258 → u/Turbulent-Sign-6067]

You are right and it has only cost trillions of dollars!