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249 points rishicomplex | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.652s | source
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throwaway713 ◴[] No.42167915[source]
Anyone else feel like mathematics is sort of the endgame? I.e., once ML can do it better than humans, that’s basically it?
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jdietrich ◴[] No.42169808[source]
Humans are terrible at anything you learn at university and incredibly good at most things you learn at trade school. In absolute terms, mathematics is much easier than laying bricks or cutting hair.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox

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1. youoy ◴[] No.42170898[source]
I would say that "narrow" mathematics (finding a proof of a given statement that we suspect has a proof using a formal language) is much easier that "generally" laying brick or cutting hair.

But I cannot see how consistently doing general mathematics (as in finding interesting and useful statements to proof, and then finding the proofs) is easier than consistently cutting hair/driving a car.

We might get LLM level mathematics, but not Human level mathematics, in the same way that we can get LLM level films (something like Avengers, or the final season of GoT), but we are not going to get Human level films.

I suspect that there are no general level mathematics without the geometric experience of humans, so for general level mathematics one has to go through perceptions and interactions with reality first. In that case, general mathematics is one level over "laying bricks or cutting hair", so more complex. And the paradox is only a paradox for superficial reasoning.

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2. staunton ◴[] No.42172137[source]
> But I cannot see how consistently doing general mathematics (as in finding interesting and useful statements to proof, and then finding the proofs) is easier than consistently cutting hair/driving a car.

The main "absolute" difficulty there is in understanding and shaping what the mathematical audience thinks is "interesting". So it's really a marketing problem. Given how these tools are being used for marketing, I would have high hopes, at least for this particular aspect...

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3. youoy ◴[] No.42173177[source]
Is it really marketing in general? I can agree with some of it, but for me the existence of the term "low hanging fruit" to describe some statements says otherwise...