7 ms·

At the moment is the significant part, how long do we expect this to last now that AI is capable of generating novel ideas like solutions to Erdos conjectures?

karlgkk 4mo ago
Wow that sure sounds smart! The problem, of course, is that generating a one time solution to a problem is a much easier problem space than a many-input task with human product concerns
- nilkn 4mo ago
  Synthesizing a ton of inputs to help clarify a decision or set of options is exactly one of the easiest and most powerful use cases for AI agents right now.
  - karlgkk 4mo ago
    I didn’t say it wasn’t :) All i said is that one type of task is easier than another
    - nilkn 4mo ago
      I don't think that part is true, either. The average human could be trained to use an agent to synthesize information in their job to help make product decisions. The average human could not be trained to evaluate whether a reasoning model produced a correct proof in research-level mathematics. To be sure: reviewing a candidate proof at this level written by AI is significantly easier and faster than writing and creating it from scratch. But it's still not something hardly any humans could credibly do.
      - karlgkk 4mo ago
        I didn’t say any of that either, all I said was for ai, one type of task is easier than another I said nothing about a human’s capabilities, which are most certainly different than an AI’s This is the second time you’ve said a bunch of stuff I didn’t say, and then tried to argue with me over it.
        deleted 4mo ago
        [deleted]
qsera 4mo ago
LLMs enable a new kind of text search. It looks like reasoning and intelligence, but it is not. For example, If you are not aware of Internet, you would consider a traditional internet search that comes up with a stackoverflow answer as a machine generating "novel ideas" and answers. It is a clever marketing trick (touting Erdos solutions) employeed by AI companies.
- CamperBob2 4mo ago
  Reading comments like this is like watching an impaired pedestrian about to be run over by an approaching bus. You yell, you wave your arms, but they aren't paying attention. There's no way to warn them, so all you can do is... watch.
  - skydhash 4mo ago
    > There's no way to warn them, so all you can do is... watch …and then wake up from the nightmare wishing the stress from the job is lower. I can only laugh that some people truly believe that developers, one of the most ardent group at automating the tedious part of their job, would refuse to use an effective tool. You only need to look at the open source world to see people litterally scratching their own hitch everywhere.
    - qsera 4mo ago
      >would refuse to use an effective tool. No one said I don't use LLMs. I use LLMs daily...for search. That is its best use. That is my own judgement.
    - voidUpdate 4mo ago
      What if I don't want to automate away the part of my job that I actually like doing? What if, in my job as a programmer, I actually want to do programming?
      - qsera 4mo ago
        People who demand programmers start using LLMs in their work don't understand that it is essentially like asking programmers to start doing accounting or HR. Something fundamentally different from what they love to do..
ulrikrasmussen 4mo ago
The most difficult and time consuming tasks in my job as a software developer is talking to customers and figuring out what they need coupled with getting them to understand what is realistic and what is not. This is a process which takes months if not years, and requires aligning internal goals and tasks with external ones. LLMs can definitely help here, but I feel that the current mode of use where the users have to explicitly manage the tiny - relative to a human brain - context window is an obstacle. I don't know if what we need is a new architecture or just more clever context engineering, but I don't see an LLM actually taking over this type of work as things are now.

karlgkk 4mo ago

Wow that sure sounds smart! The problem, of course, is that generating a one time solution to a problem is a much easier problem space than a many-input task with human product concerns

nilkn 4mo ago
Synthesizing a ton of inputs to help clarify a decision or set of options is exactly one of the easiest and most powerful use cases for AI agents right now.
- karlgkk 4mo ago
  I didn’t say it wasn’t :) All i said is that one type of task is easier than another
  - nilkn 4mo ago
    I don't think that part is true, either. The average human could be trained to use an agent to synthesize information in their job to help make product decisions. The average human could not be trained to evaluate whether a reasoning model produced a correct proof in research-level mathematics. To be sure: reviewing a candidate proof at this level written by AI is significantly easier and faster than writing and creating it from scratch. But it's still not something hardly any humans could credibly do.
    - karlgkk 4mo ago
      I didn’t say any of that either, all I said was for ai, one type of task is easier than another I said nothing about a human’s capabilities, which are most certainly different than an AI’s This is the second time you’ve said a bunch of stuff I didn’t say, and then tried to argue with me over it.
      - deleted 4mo ago
        [deleted]

qsera 4mo ago

LLMs enable a new kind of text search. It looks like reasoning and intelligence, but it is not. For example, If you are not aware of Internet, you would consider a traditional internet search that comes up with a stackoverflow answer as a machine generating "novel ideas" and answers. It is a clever marketing trick (touting Erdos solutions) employeed by AI companies.

CamperBob2 4mo ago
Reading comments like this is like watching an impaired pedestrian about to be run over by an approaching bus. You yell, you wave your arms, but they aren't paying attention. There's no way to warn them, so all you can do is... watch.
- skydhash 4mo ago
  > There's no way to warn them, so all you can do is... watch …and then wake up from the nightmare wishing the stress from the job is lower. I can only laugh that some people truly believe that developers, one of the most ardent group at automating the tedious part of their job, would refuse to use an effective tool. You only need to look at the open source world to see people litterally scratching their own hitch everywhere.
  - qsera 4mo ago
    >would refuse to use an effective tool. No one said I don't use LLMs. I use LLMs daily...for search. That is its best use. That is my own judgement.
  - voidUpdate 4mo ago
    What if I don't want to automate away the part of my job that I actually like doing? What if, in my job as a programmer, I actually want to do programming?
    - qsera 4mo ago
      People who demand programmers start using LLMs in their work don't understand that it is essentially like asking programmers to start doing accounting or HR. Something fundamentally different from what they love to do..

ulrikrasmussen 4mo ago

The most difficult and time consuming tasks in my job as a software developer is talking to customers and figuring out what they need coupled with getting them to understand what is realistic and what is not. This is a process which takes months if not years, and requires aligning internal goals and tasks with external ones. LLMs can definitely help here, but I feel that the current mode of use where the users have to explicitly manage the tiny - relative to a human brain - context window is an obstacle. I don't know if what we need is a new architecture or just more clever context engineering, but I don't see an LLM actually taking over this type of work as things are now.