WhyOhWhyQ

If all AI progress stops soon, then I think you're right. However I think automating almost all software development is not far off from being an engineering problem if one is willing to burn enough tokens. I can imagine it being done right now. Just run 100-1000 claude instances and give them different roles. Some of them take screenshots (probably include better OCR/Screenshot analysis models than whatever Anthropic is running) and act as debuggers / user testers. Some of them do planning. Some of them are managers. Some of them are coders. Etc... I'd bet 100k that I could make Halo 1 in a month or two with this setup (minus the beautiful music, compelling story, quality voice acting, art -- though trashy replacements could be made).

I'm disappointed that my human life has no value in a world of AI. You can retort with "ah but you'll be entertained and on super-drugs so you won't care!", but I would further retort that I'd rather live in a universe where I can contribute something, no matter how small.

Since someone else vocally disagreed, I'll just back this up. If you change your social situation (new job, new friends, etc...) then a lot of other changes seem to be easier, in my experience.

Does he say how the fuzzification is defined?

It's truly the best book on Smooth Manifolds, though if you'd like a gentler approach which is still useful, then I suggest Loring Tu's books. Lee's Topological Manifolds book is also very nice. His newest edition of the Riemannian manifolds book requires selective reading or it'll slow you down.

What does it mean? My stance is it's (obviously and only a fool would think otherwise) never going to be conscious because consciousness is a physical process based on particular material interactions, like everything else we've ever encountered. But I have no clear stance on what thinking means besides a sequence of deductions, which seems like something it's already doing in "thinking mode".

I guess we're in the kim-1 era of local models, or is that already done?

Their idea is that each year the model from last year is exponentially cheaper to run. If we're putting faith in what the people building it believe, then why aren't we paying attention to their beliefs? It is becoming exponentially cheaper to run, so everybody will be running the frontier model equivalent locally two years from now.

I already consider Claude code an AGI and I'm among the biggest AI haters on this website. If you haven't seen Claude code do anything impressive then you're either not subscribed to it or are willfully ignorant. Powerful AGI is clearly coming, if not 3 years from now at most 20.

You might consider the possibility that decentralized AI will team up with itself to enact plans. There's no "pulling the plug" in that scenario.

I was sharing Gowers' thoughts. You clearly don't know how to read. It's not surprising considering the intellectual quality of the average commenter here.

Go read Gowers' essay.

Gowers wrote about AI in the late 90's. He predicted a short golden age where mathematicians would still be useful to the AI. We are in that golden age now, apparently. The AI will soon eclipse all humans in mathematics and the art form of mathematics will cease in its present form.

Would you mind sharing what career stage you are in? I don't feel empowered to take such a stance, though I'd like to.

I can't seem to get myself to focus when one of these things is running. I transition into low effort mode. Because of this I've decided to have my good hours of the day LLM free, and then in my crappy hours I'll have one of these running.

I predict the useful activity of writing LLM boilerplate will have a far shorter shelf-life than the activity of writing code has has.

Where's the pride in what you make when you're using AI agents? Seems like you're fantasizing about a by-gone era. The name of the activity, "vibe-coding", already makes it clear that this is a pride-free industry.

(Terence Tao is his name.) Yes, he takes a rather measured view on AI, but I think for myself, not in terms of what X great person thinks. He is smarter than I am (you probably are not even aware how amazing he is, frankly, and I only say that to convey my immense admiration), and more successful by a million times, and is a millionaire with a tenure track job, and he's basically a fields medalist among fields medalists. The effect of AI on his life is very little compared to the effect of AI on mine. I am always impressed by Terence Tao, but there's basically no life lesson the average mathematician can glean from him. He is truly astounding (to be fair, there are a few other astonishing people in mathematics).

The truth is that with a few more innovations, even Terence Tao will have little to add to an AI's problem solving ability. I will personally enjoy having mathematics explained to me by the AI, but it will be in relative poverty and material insecurity caused by the AI.

A recent AI data point occurred this last weekend with many coming together to answer MathOverflow post, because Terence Tao answered it with some tedious parts done by AI. https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao/115325229364313459

I think his tone is optimistic, but falsely so.

Buddy your thesis is that art does not exist because of capitalism. That is a ridiculous 'thesis'.

I have a phd in mathematics and I assure you I am not happy that AI is going to make doing mathematics a waste of time. Go read Gower's essay on it from the 90s. He is spot on.

It's really not though. There are a few high quality individual creators, but not many.

If be benefitting you mean displacing all reason to live, then yes, it will solve that problem I face. Now I will be certain.

Seems like society isn't going to benefit much, but the ultrawealthy will benefit enormously.

In America, I see the main argument in support of the destruction of norms for AI corporations and copyright theft is as follows. "If we adhere to standard views of copyright, then we will be disadvantaged in the race to super-intelligence against China."

I really think this argument is baseless, however, because there's absolutely no reason to think if Chinese corporations make some paradigm shifting advancement in AI then American corporations won't quickly copy it, just as Chinese corporations VERY quickly caught up to GPT 3. Is less than 1 year of economic advantage really worth the permanent erasure of norms like copyright and privacy?

This seems to miss the point. Being Grug is the endgame.

You would get back up to speed in a few weeks. The guy who comes after you and never had formative years writing assembly would never get to the level you were at.

It's interesting that every task in the world is boring to somebody, which means nothing left in the world will be done by those interested in it, because somebody will gladly shotgun it with an AI tool.

Why should the excitement of a technology have anything to do with my critical view of it? Are we toddlers playing with toys, or are we trying to make a better world here?

(I'm looking at the paragraph after FORWARD.) You should cut down on the sentences with commas. The flow stops and starts way too often.

RIP to those generous souls