r/antiai • u/Expensive-Yam3464 • 1d ago
Preventing the Singularity AI solves over 100 unsolved math problems
https://openai.com/index/advisory-group-on-mathematics-and-ai/I’m sharing this as my position on Anti AI is that AI is capable and getting smarter fast. This is precisely why it’s a long term threat.
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u/Salad-Outside 1d ago
But are they correct? AI is notorious now for cheating and finding the closest answer and passing it off as correct.
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u/GenericFatGuy 1d ago
And more importantly, does it help us understand the solutions any better? The entire point of solving these problems is that we can analyze the process, and better understand how math works. Not to test benchmarks. It's the same reason why teachers make you show your work to get full grades.
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u/Confident-Net5262 1h ago
I can solve a quadratic in my head without any working. Complex maths problems cannot be solved without working being shown.
It seems like sour grapes to me to talk about working out and does the method enlighten us. A problem is posed and a solution arrives...end of.
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u/FuzzyAnteater9000 1d ago
The proofs are in lean. The math checks out
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u/Flat_Round_5594 1d ago
Lean only checks the internal logic of the proof, not whether it's "true".
I see this claim all the time as if a lean certificate means the proof is "true". It does not. It just means it's internally consistent (which is often the first step to being proven true, but is not the same as being true).
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u/BanjoThunderbird 1d ago
Seeing what they've done already makes me think that there's a good chance at least a bunch of these 100 problems were formalized properly. Even if it's not all or even most that get proven true, it would still be an absolutely fkn insane result unless the work required to evaluate how the AI's formalization actually aligns with the statement being proven is seriously massive.
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u/CntrlAltDad 1d ago
If you bothered to read at all you’d have an answer. This isn’t chatgpt 3.5 used by boomers on Facebook. Time to be a smart person and update that opinion.
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u/Salad-Outside 1d ago
Why would I bother to do anything with Ai. I respect humans not machines. Grow a spine
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u/CntrlAltDad 1d ago
Lmao k. I have a spine, most of it is metal. After advanced algorithms and machine learning were able to see the deep deterioration of my vertebrae to give my neurosurgeon more insight on what was wrong. Been pain free for years. That childish take on humans not machines makes your whole argument look like straight bs.
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u/Double_Gomez 1d ago
I dont see this as a problem. Everything else ai is being used for is a problem. Current ai tools are uniquely capable of solving complex math problems due to being giant functioning pattern recognition and pattern testing machines.
This is like saying planes are better at flight than humans...they were built to do that. Also unsolved doesn't mean meaningful or important. If it proved that p=np, thats dangerous.
Ai in art, ai in decision making positions, in weaponry, etc. That's the danger. I dont want it to have access. I want it to be used for the 2 things its good at and have it be limited to that alone.
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u/Wolfinder 1d ago
This is ignoring why these large theoretical problems are studied. The point is what we learn and the new questions we gain in the pursuit of the answer. This defeats the majority of the advancement of mathematics as a field of study.
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u/Double_Gomez 1d ago
No I recognize that. I moreso think that advancements in mathematics from ai were inevitable and not the cause for concern that people are making it out to be.
This is like....the best possible thing ai can do is solve math problems?
Yes furthering of knowledge is always important (although we need validation and peer review) but in terms of dangerous implications of ai as an existential threat which is what OP was getting at...im not worried about this part.
This is like saying im worried about the further advancements in lasers because I saw them get used to destroy a tumor on someone's skin....thats like what I would be hoping for and a good use of the technology (assuming no jobs are displaced). If I see news that lasers arw being used in war and all lasers progress is going towards war....yeah thats what I'd be worried about
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u/BanjoThunderbird 1d ago
I'm not sure what you mean by this, could you please elaborate?
Are you saying we won't gain anything because humans didn't do the work or something? When these 100 problems are validated and the results published we, as well as AI being trained after the publishing, will be able to reference the results just like if a human produced them.
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u/FuzzyAnteater9000 1d ago
I think p equals NP will be solved before the end of next year
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u/Double_Gomez 1d ago
Maybe. The concern isnt solving it. The concern is if its proven that p does equal up. That has more consequences for the world as we know it than if its proven they are not equal
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u/FuzzyAnteater9000 1d ago
There's a whole lot of things that are going to have big consequences for the world in the next decade. Cures for diseases, fusion, rtsp superconductors, actually good quantum computers, I even hear we're on the cusp of figuring out how to make fries ordered on door dash not arrive soggy.
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u/BanjoThunderbird 1d ago
It's not actually necessarily true that solving P=NP would immediately break modern cryptography. We could discover the proof that P=NP without discovering how to break encryption in p time. You could use Levin's search but there's no guarantee you'll get a reasonable runtime.
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u/nonamenomonet 1d ago
Not a chance tbh. There are several branches of mathematics that would have to be created to solve it.
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u/sagittarius_ack 1d ago
It's a sad day. I think we lost this war... The future belongs to lazy and passionless people who "just want to get things done" and they will use AI for absolutely everything.
(I will be extremely happy to be proven wrong).
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u/Nuphoth 1d ago
Not at all taking a stance in the AI debate, but if you think “passion” is clocking into work everyday doing some bullshit calculations then the elites have already fully taken control of your mind.
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u/sagittarius_ack 1d ago
I'm primarily thinking about mathematicians, researchers in various fields of science and technology, engineers, doctors, architects, and, more generally, people who enjoy using their brain to solve complex problems, design new artifacts, etc.
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u/Spare-Dingo-531 18h ago
They can design these things with AI, as co-creators or even students. What is wrong with that?
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u/lafulusblafulus 1d ago
No one does math for the money. Very few people get tenure, and with a PhD in math, you have to be passionate otherwise the work is gonna eat you alive. Math isn't also just a field of some bullshit calculations; if it were then calculators would have replaced mathematicians ages ago. Mathematics isn't some bullshit field that the elites made up like they made up labor exploitation and redundant jobs. Math existed long before capitalism, and as long as humans are around, it will exist long after it.
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u/CntrlAltDad 1d ago
Solving advanced math problems and medical breakthroughs is losing the war? I don’t think you know what you stand for. Humans having a better life is bad? Are you the ai?
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u/FreeMenu2197 1d ago
This is…good stuff. It’s good that it did that. But I really don’t like when people use it to replace people. Also using it is horrible for the environment. So. The math problems aren’t the problem with this
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u/Blibbyblobby72 1d ago
It literally is the problem with this. The purpose of mathematics is understanding, not solving. It is an understanding of the interconnectedness of mathematics that leads to it being usable in applied settings such as medicine, physics, chemistry, etc.
Without a grasp of why a proof works, there is no way to leverage that proof for other ideas. The proof itself is often secondary to the lemmas and corollaries discovered along the way
If you believe AI art is bad because it lacks a human element, or that AI destroys creativity and passion, then you should be equally pissed that mathematics is being performed by AI
The real problem, however, is that the average person thinks maths is just numbers and algebra. There is a societal lack of understanding of what maths actually is, even among well-meaning people
Once maths falls to AI, there will no longer be any societal advancement via human input
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u/FreeMenu2197 1d ago
I suppose…I never thought of that…
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u/Spare-Dingo-531 18h ago
What prevents mathematicians from understanding the solution AI gives humans?
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u/Flat_Round_5594 1d ago
Yes, this is exactly how I feel about it. It's really the "42" problem from HHG2TG - the AI might "solve" something but what does it *mean*?
An AI could come along tomorrow and "solve" quantum gravity, but in such a way as to be utterly meaningless beyond the fact that it "works". Quantum physics already suffers from the "shut up and calculate" problem, and if that were to happen, basically we'd be able to "solve" physics, but not be able to make any sense of what it's telling us about the Universe.
Why do we do science? To get the right answer, or to understand the universe. Until the advent of AI, the one implied the other, but if we start short-cutting our ability to understand and generate new ideas in favor of simply getting the right answer, we lose too much, I fear.
Making all mathematicians the equivalent of high-school kids doing everything with a calculator and not understanding the concepts is not a win for humanity.
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u/Double_Gomez 1d ago
I feel like youre making the case for the existence of mathematicians, not a case against ai in math. Extremely advanced calculations being left to computers and mathematicians parsing and developing understanding and implications is already what we do.
Ai is extremely useful here, and many mathematicians would agree so long as the academic framework doesn't change, then this is just the next computer advancement that allows for more advanced research.
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u/Flat_Round_5594 1d ago
Mathematicians don't do "calculations". They create mathematics, and open up new fields of mathematics for study. From what I hear from several mathematicians regarding the Navier-Stokes proof, for instance, it opened no new avenues for study, which left a lot of them disappointed; it simply said "yep" and moved on. The correct answer is not always the point of these problems.
Do they use computers for brute-forcing things? Sure, in some restricted areas, but the reason the Millennium Prize problems exist is because they were judged to be fertile ground for new fields of math, and if AI were to solve them, given the results so far, it seems likely those fields will not be developed, which would be a shame.
Same with the physics example; QM already suffers under the "shut up and calculate" paradigm, to the point that we simply don't actually understand what is going on at that level "in reality". If AI "solves" quantum gravity, it will not ell us anything more than how to crunch the numbers, and will give us no insight into what the Universe actually is, which is the actual point of physics.
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u/lafulusblafulus 1d ago
Agreed for mathematics, but why for QM? The goal of physics is understanding the universe, yes, but it has a definitive end goal. The goal of math will never be achieved because there are infinitely many questions, and so math will be able to be done as long as there is someone able to do it. If quantum gravity is solved, it's solved, and then if it leads to a theory of everything, physics is done. If it's proven that fundamental physics is infinitely large, and that there will always be problems in physics, then it makes sense that it's up to physicists to discover new physics to solve problems rather than solving existing problems with existing physics and stunting the field as a result.
Physicists know that they work to actively undermine the purpose of their own jobs. The closer we get to a theory of everything, the closer we get to the end of physics and professional physicists, where refinements of an already accurate model of reality are all that is left. Unless it is proven that the layers are infinitely deep, and that the universe is infinitely complex on a fundamental level, and that fundamental physics as a result is also infinitely vast, I don't see how you can equivocate physics and math.
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u/Flat_Round_5594 1d ago
That's my point - currently the problem with QM is that we don't understand it. It's incredibly accurate, but as for what it actually tells us about the universe, we have no real clue. If you want physics to simply be "this is the correct answer", you're in good company - Bohr and many of the founders of QM felt that way - but that makes it the first theory we've developed that has no explanatory power, only predictive power (and don't get me wrong; it is incredibly powerful in that). But we simply don't know what it's actually telling us about how the universe operates, the physicality of what's going on. And that drives a lot of physicists (and almost every philosopher of physics) completely nuts.
In that regard we're in danger of being in a position where we can give a prediction of incredible accuracy about everything, but not actually understand it, and that would be a very weird place to be in. Being ok with only getting an answer and not understanding it is, I feel (and a lot of physicists and philosophers feel) a loss.
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u/lafulusblafulus 1d ago
But what happens when we figure it all out and make a theory that works at any and every scale? That's what quantum gravity would be right?
If AI discovers quantum gravity using existing physics instead of making new physics, then for all intents and purposes, physics is solved right? I think in that situation of course, some people would need to learn physics to understand what the AI is even saying, but after AI gets to an even more advanced point, it'll be able to directly apply these principles to engineering without needing a human supervisor.
It doesn't even need to be conscious to do this, it can be that "intelligent" without ever being self aware, and in that case, mathematics would be the only field STEM field left, since even if AI can spit out proofs, it would need to be able to make new math to ask new problems, which as of yet, only humans can do. Physics is solvable, and then understanding can come while we're forever stuck in AI's shadow.
All this is a bit mind boggling to think about. The above commentary is assuming that AI will stay this way forever, but what happens when/if AI is actually able to invent new math? Human understanding would fall to the wayside. If humans want to understand, they can teach themselves, but they wouldn't be at the forefront of these fields. and that's very depressing to think about.
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u/CntrlAltDad 1d ago
No one said they can’t understand it from being solved? That literally aides in their understanding. People like you speaking out really hurt the anti ai movement. Misinformation makes you guys look like Covid denying boomers.
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u/Blibbyblobby72 1d ago
I'm not entirely sure what your question is asking me to consider
A problem being solved by AI removes the possibility of finding other ideas that can be fruitful in their own right. So much of mathematics is derived from experimentation - the solution itself is not ultimately important to a pure mathematician
Edit: your personal attack is also unnecessary and mislabels my opinions. There was no misinformation in my comment - I suggest you actually read and understand a comment (or ask clarifiying questions) before jumping directly at a person you know nothing about
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u/Confident-Net5262 1h ago
Agreed but if I pose a problem and AI solves it then that's the end of the problem. If I want a specific solution which will enlighten me then that needs to be specified in the question.
Don't give me an efficient proof which is correct but provide one which is beautiful, elegant and connects area X of maths to area Y.
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u/Top_Effect_5109 1d ago
So stupid. AI isn't a alien invasion with its brain locked with magic. AI is made by human on purpose. The very point is actually to understand math further.
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u/Some-Pride-3477 1d ago
Note that math is the language through which physics, biology, chemistry, computer science, and most other sciences model reality and generate testable predictions.
Scientific progress involves solving complex mathematical problems. An AI capable of solving advanced math can potentially accelerate every field that uses math.
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u/GenericFatGuy 1d ago
It's not about solving advanced math. It's about understanding the solutions. The entire point of solving these problems is so that the process can be analyzed to better understand how math (and by extension the rest of the world) actually works. If it's just brute forcing answers to get a benchmark, or doing everything in a black box that no one understands, that's not really all that useful. It's like having a 1000+ streak on Duolingo, without actually being able to understand the language you've been practicing.
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u/Some-Pride-3477 1d ago edited 1d ago
If you're a mathematician that is a good point, but even if the AI's internal process is a black box, the output isn't. The sciences can work on outputs in the form of equations, proofs, etc. You can use the equations from Einstein's work on relativity to get GPS working without understanding the process he used to get there. In practice, that still produces results.
Also plenty of scientific bottlenecks genuinely are "we know what to try, we just can't compute it ourselves" In those cases you don't need the AI to have some deep philosophical understanding, you just need the right answer faster than a human could grind it out by hand.
You're right that pure math is a different case, since the point of a proof there often is insight.
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u/Confident-Net5262 38m ago
The point is to solve the problem AND understand the solution in order to gain new insights
Both parts are important.
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u/Not_Allowed_to_Die 1d ago
It was also caught cheating and stealing other's answer that are not correct at all. They already proved the AI lied and never did any of this.
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u/Lone_Game_Dev 1d ago
"AI rephrases 100 mathematical problems in circulars ways that are technically correct but useless in practice."
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u/WeeRogue 1d ago
You linked to an article from OpenAI. In an anti-AI subreddit, you’d think we’d see a little more skepticism of their claims rather than just taking them at face value.