8 ms·

> We’re sharing a solution to the Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness problem, one of the Millennium Prize Problems. This proof, produced by an internal Open

> We’re sharing a solution to the Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness problem, one of the Millennium Prize Problems. This proof, produced by an internal OpenAI system, shows that the dynamics of the Navier-Stokes equations for fluid motion can develop a singularity in finite time. We’re sharing both a writeup of the proof and a formalization in Lean. WOW?

echelon 8d ago
This is going to be dramatic in so many different ways. - First off, to reiterate, WOW. - Second of all, when does this end? Are we at the dawn of the singularity now? - People are saying OpenAI "stole" this from the work of an OpenAI user. If so, that's pretty fucked - how can we trust them? - Time to think about retiring from any knowledge work or business? This could be winner-take-all where a leading lab can button press any economic function, business process, or scientific discovery. 24 months of lead on Open Source might turn into virtual centuries of lead. - Do "normies" even know what's happening? Anybody who thinks the improvements stop here isn't paying attention. It hasn't been showing any signs of slowing down since 2018. And the curve isn't even linear! My god, next year is going to be insane.
- d_silin 8d ago
  ...absolutely nothing will change short-term. Long-term, you still have to pay all the bills, but you won't be able to find a job (all taken by AIs).
  - lbreakjai 8d ago
    Who is the AI doing the job for if no one is able to afford anything?
    - d_silin 7d ago
      This is the question I don't have a satisfactory answer for. But neither does Sam and Dario.
- raincole 8d ago
  > People are saying OpenAI "stole" this from the work of an OpenAI user. If so, that's pretty fucked - how can we trust them? The said user (Tristan Buckmaster) didn't solve the millennium problem. He didn't really accuse that OpenAI stole his research either. The beef came from the fact OpenAI asked him to remove another mathematician, who works for Anthropic, from the credit. "People" are just misinformed and keep spreading misinformation.
  - naasking 8d ago
    > The said user (Tristan Buckmaster) didn't solve the millennium problem. He didn't really accuse that OpenAI stole his research either. The beef came from the fact OpenAI asked him to remove another mathematician, who works for Anthropic, from the credit. Not quite accurate, Buckmaster was taking an approach that nobody else was, and this new proof uses this same approach just weeks after he saved those results to OpenAI workspaces. He asked OpenAI if they used chat logs for training the new model, and they did not confirm or deny. Asking to remove his collaborator is also totally over the line though. Edit: although this OpenAI post is not comforting: https://x.com/OpenAI/status/2097375276384567642 https://x.com/OpenAI/status/2097375276384567642 Quote: "While unlikely, we cannot rule out that de-identified data derived from their usage of our products helped improve our models. "
    - emp17344 8d ago
      You can expect the OpenAI defenders to be out in full force here.
    - stefap2 8d ago
      Wow, this sentence is doing a lot of work in that tweet: "While unlikely, we cannot rule out that de-identified data derived from their usage of our products helped improve our models."
  - achierius 8d ago
    Have you read the actual statement https://cims.nyu.edu/~tristanb/statement.pdf https://cims.nyu.edu/~tristanb/statement.pdf ? > I should say here why I interpreted their statement the way I did, the in- terpretation I will discuss below. The route to the Clay problem through a smooth force, options c and d in Fefferman’s statement of the problem, is the route Luis and Diego opened and the one Levent and I had quietly chosen to attack. Almost nobody else I know of was working on it. It is not the direction one arrives at in a few days by giving a model the problem statement. When I heard “forced,” it was a bright red flag. ... > I asked when the first prompt had been sent by them. This question was not answered directly by OpenAI for some time. Eventually it was agreed that it had been sent in the past few days, after information about our work had reached OpenAI. > I asked whether the model had been trained on, or had access to, our sessions in Codex, into which we had been putting all our drafts for the whole of this project. I was told the model did not look up user data. I asked again, about training, and I did not get an answer. It's not a direct accusation, but it's not far off. You shouldn't accuse other people of spreading misinformation when you haven't read the actual sources in question, it's possible that they might know more than you.
- tiborsaas 8d ago
  2) We are witnessing the intelligence explosion from the first row, wherever this takes us 3) I'm still processing the drama, just found out about it after reading the blog post. If that happened based on private data, that's horrible. If that happened based on public tweets, then it's still abuse of power as OA employees access to compute (launching 10k agents) is quite heavy weight in boxing terms. But apart from AI and drama now that we have working solution to Navier-Stokes, what improvements can we expect in engineering?
  - inkysigma 8d ago
    To be quite clear, the solution to the _Navier Stokes problem_ is one in which you get a finite time blow up (i.e. infinite pressure). This is more meant to suggest that Navier Stokes is unphysical in some way which is not necessarily unexpected. There's unlikely to be any engineering applications since even if the solution can be approximated, you still need to set up the initial conditions but at that point you can also drive pressure in other ways.
    - thangalin 8d ago
      The proof of finite-time singularity may impact both fluid dynamics models (CFD) and AI reasoning models. Under specific conditions, Navier–Stokes equations allow velocity to grow infinitely, causing the continuum fluid assumption to break down. Knowing the exact mathematical breakdown mechanisms helps developers improve adaptive mesh refinement and sub-grid scale models around high-vorticity regions (like vortex stretching and turbulent shear layers). While aerodynamic simulations for vehicles operate far from singularity thresholds, their stability at extreme boundaries could improve? Proving out the combination of scaling inference-time compute and agent collaboration to solve previously intractable mathematical problems is WOW. By pairing creative candidate generation with automated proof checkers (like Lean) we are leaning into a repeatable framework for AI-driven scientific discovery.
      - semi-extrinsic 8d ago
        > Knowing the exact mathematical breakdown mechanisms helps developers improve adaptive mesh refinement and sub-grid scale models around high-vorticity regions (like vortex stretching and turbulent shear layers). This is 100% wrong and reads like copy paste of AI slop. Any simulation which uses sub-grid scale models is already solving a different PDE than the actual Navier-Stokes considered in the Millenium problem, and that PDE is guaranteed to have different properties. Full stop. And to claim this is somehow connected to AMR methods is an example of the kind of pseudoscientific statement Wolfgang Pauli would have called "not even wrong".
- stefap2 8d ago
  This just pushes knowledge work further up the ladder, toward larger and more complex problems. If there are no knowledge workers, who is going to interpret these results, validate them, decide what matters, and put them into practical use? Rather than eliminating knowledge work, advances like this could create entirely new layers of problems to solve and opportunities to pursue, which will create even more jobs and opportunities. This is my optimistic take.
  - munificent 8d ago
    > This just pushes knowledge work further up the ladder, toward larger and more complex problems. You really think it makes sense for you to be higher on the "solving complex problems ladder" than the machines that solved fucking Navier-Stokes? I envy your self-confidence.
    - stefap2 8d ago
      Maybe I should have been clearer. My point is that solving something like Navier–Stokes just pushes knowledge work further ahead, onto a new set of bigger and more complex problems. Navier–Stokes is a Millennium problem today, but once problems like that become solvable, they can open the door to entirely new classes of problems we haven’t even thought of yet.
      - FridgeSeal 8d ago
        Building on them without fundamentally understanding is akin to putting on robes, calling yourself a Tech-Priest, worshipping a machine god and doing your best Warhammer 40k impression.
    - mlsu 8d ago
      It seems like there were a couple of human mathematicians that were higher on the 'solving complex problems ladder' than this machine.
      - deleted 8d ago
        [deleted]
- trio8453 8d ago
  > Do "normies" even know what's happening? No, there are even many non-normies talking about how it's all marketing or try to give balanced take about AI being sometimes a little useful for certain things (but they can do without it anyway).
  - ImaCake 8d ago
    I am absolutely struggling to sell my workplace (which is entirely knowledge work) on the usefulness of LLMs for proofreading let alone on automation of hairy parts of our workflows. So yeah, even people who should be able to see what is coming are not looking.
    - sire-vc 8d ago
      Our accountant told me 'he's not letting go of his claude subscription' followed by a long list of things it does for him. And my friend 'nah haven't really used AI' before his description of it clarified he still thinks they are GPT 3.5 chat bots. The world has changed in 12 months and many people didn't notice, and those that did are eating their peers' lunch.
- armchairhacker 8d ago
  Let's wait until AI solves a longstanding practical problem before "dawn of the singularity" (which could be tomorrow, but still).
  - bibimsz 8d ago
    feels like moving the goalpost. is the achievement impressive or isn't it?
    - qlte 8d ago
      The question being posed isn't whether AI is impressive but whether we're at the "dawn of the singularity"
      - bibimsz 8d ago
        i'm observing that rapidly moving goalposts is a feature of the singularity
  - reducesuffering 8d ago
    Practical?! The goalposts will keep moving until morale improves (narrator: it doesn't)
    - armchairhacker 8d ago
      The goalposts for the singularity have always been that AI improves itself fully autonomously. AFAIK OpenAI is heavily using AI but still employs human researchers and developers.
      - p1esk 8d ago
        They said they will automate AI researchers by March 2028. I personally think it will happen by March 2027.
    - qlte 8d ago
      Uh I'm pretty sure the "singularity" always presupposed a lot of previously unthinkable technologies becoming part of daily life, and was not ever limited to just computer stuff or math problems. "Moving the goalposts" as shallow dismissal doesn't work if e.g. someone points out AI hasn't even built a new type of spaceship yet in response to a claim that AI is on the verge of building a Dyson sphere.
- Bluestein 8d ago
  Next month is going to be insane. Month ...
- onidj 8d ago
  >- Do "normies" even know what's happening? Absolutely not. Even to a lot of techy/nerdy people it's still just a chatbot that they sometimes use to help them at work. Even on here people will do whatever they can to downplay. The lack of fucks given is staggering.
  - nozzlegear 8d ago
    How many fucks should be given, in your estimation?
    - senshan 8d ago
      ∀ε>0, ∀x: ‖s−x‖<ε ⟹ |fucks(x)| > 1/ε
- tantalor 8d ago
  > Are we at the dawn of the singularity now Singularity doesn't "dawn". That's the whole idea. It happens all at once.
  - echelon 8d ago
    There's an event horizon and we're maybe past it?
    - tantalor 8d ago
      Heh. Wrong "singularity"
      - FabCH 8d ago
        They meant that even the happens-very-fast AI singularity isn’t sub-picosecond. It still exists in time, and has a duration. The event horizon would then be the time period between the singularity becoming inevitable and it actually happening.
- biophysboy 8d ago
  Why is a "normie" better off if he hyperventilates like this? In that scenario, they would be screwed AND anxious. If it really is as transformational as you say, then no amount of preparation or awareness matters. You are infinitesimally more ready then they are. Luckily for all of us, there is more to knowledge work then technical implementation.
- root_axis 8d ago
  It's incredible to me that every single time there's a new model people scream "singularity" from the rooftops and every time they are wrong. This is an impressive result, but there is absolutely zero evidence of "the singularity".
  - hackinthebochs 8d ago
    It is not reasonable to not believe anything unless there is "evidence" (narrowly construed as an observation incompatible with the negation of some state of affairs). Beliefs have a wide spectrum of characterizations, and not all belief must wait until publicly corroborated evidence is available. Some events defy evidence and we can and should use experience and reasoning to infer unobservable states of affairs.
    - root_axis 8d ago
      This is olympic level mental gymnastics to justify believing things without evidence. The double negative with the word evidence in scare quotes is chef's kiss.
      - hackinthebochs 8d ago
        I believe the sun will rise tomorrow without "evidence" (again, narrowly construed). We all do. It's only those who abuse the idea of epistemic hygiene who claim otherwise, usually with ulterior motives.
        root_axis 8d ago
        The evidence is the history of the sun rising since time immemorial, as well as the science of physics and cosmology that models the sun's motion with respect to the earth.
        hackinthebochs 8d ago
        Yes, reasoning with models and making inferences are perfectly acceptable forms of evidence. But you can model the world based on ones knowledge and experience and infer when some event doesn't fit the typical pattern, then form beliefs about what that means. Also perfectly fine from an epistemic perspective. The rejoinder "there's no evidence" to a belief based on such an inference does no work.
- baq 8d ago
  > - First off, to reiterate, WOW. > - Second of all, when does this end? Are we at the dawn of the singularity now? normalcy overhang n. /NOR-muhl-see OH-ver-hang/ The uncanny period during the Singularity when superintelligence is already accomplishing feats that seem like magic, yet everyday life still looks mostly the same. https://x.com/alexwg/status/2096214373001785794 https://x.com/alexwg/status/2096214373001785794
jampekka 8d ago
> WOW This. I do dislike the AI oligarchs as much as the next person, but I do find the thread full of complaining a bit depressing still. If the result holds (and it looks it does), this may be one of the, if not the, biggest things to happen in computing to date. A lot bigger than e.g. Deep Blue beating Kasparov in chess or AlphaGo beating Sedol in Go.
- Eridrus 8d ago
  Seeing mathematicians such as Terry Tao being unhappy with open problems being solved makes me sort of question the usefulness of any of this pure mathematics. If we're not happy that the problems are being solved, why care about this field at all?
  - karmakurtisaani 8d ago
    Where was Tao unhappy? I thought he was sort of anticipating this.
    - xhevahir 8d ago
      Maybe he was dreading it.
  - empath75 8d ago
    He's not unhappy with it being solved, but the solution is less important than the learning you have to do to arrive at the solution. If they're just chucking compute at it and publishing the answer and hiding the path to get there, it sort of negates the whole point of posing such problems to begin with.
  - concinds 8d ago
    His issue is more nuanced than that. Most of the value was in humans reaching new insights or new math during failed attempts to solve these problems, whereas AI is basically "too efficient" in beelining to the goal and discards potential new insights reached along the way. I assume this is solvable.

echelon 8d ago

This is going to be dramatic in so many different ways. - First off, to reiterate, WOW. - Second of all, when does this end? Are we at the dawn of the singularity now? - People are saying OpenAI "stole" this from the work of an OpenAI user. If so, that's pretty fucked - how can we trust them? - Time to think about retiring from any knowledge work or business? This could be winner-take-all where a leading lab can button press any economic function, business process, or scientific discovery. 24 months of lead on Open Source might turn into virtual centuries of lead. - Do "normies" even know what's happening? Anybody who thinks the improvements stop here isn't paying attention. It hasn't been showing any signs of slowing down since 2018. And the curve isn't even linear! My god, next year is going to be insane.

d_silin 8d ago
...absolutely nothing will change short-term. Long-term, you still have to pay all the bills, but you won't be able to find a job (all taken by AIs).
- lbreakjai 8d ago
  Who is the AI doing the job for if no one is able to afford anything?
  - d_silin 7d ago
    This is the question I don't have a satisfactory answer for. But neither does Sam and Dario.
raincole 8d ago
> People are saying OpenAI "stole" this from the work of an OpenAI user. If so, that's pretty fucked - how can we trust them? The said user (Tristan Buckmaster) didn't solve the millennium problem. He didn't really accuse that OpenAI stole his research either. The beef came from the fact OpenAI asked him to remove another mathematician, who works for Anthropic, from the credit. "People" are just misinformed and keep spreading misinformation.
- naasking 8d ago
  > The said user (Tristan Buckmaster) didn't solve the millennium problem. He didn't really accuse that OpenAI stole his research either. The beef came from the fact OpenAI asked him to remove another mathematician, who works for Anthropic, from the credit. Not quite accurate, Buckmaster was taking an approach that nobody else was, and this new proof uses this same approach just weeks after he saved those results to OpenAI workspaces. He asked OpenAI if they used chat logs for training the new model, and they did not confirm or deny. Asking to remove his collaborator is also totally over the line though. Edit: although this OpenAI post is not comforting: https://x.com/OpenAI/status/2097375276384567642 https://x.com/OpenAI/status/2097375276384567642 Quote: "While unlikely, we cannot rule out that de-identified data derived from their usage of our products helped improve our models. "
  - emp17344 8d ago
    You can expect the OpenAI defenders to be out in full force here.
  - stefap2 8d ago
    Wow, this sentence is doing a lot of work in that tweet: "While unlikely, we cannot rule out that de-identified data derived from their usage of our products helped improve our models."
- achierius 8d ago
  Have you read the actual statement https://cims.nyu.edu/~tristanb/statement.pdf https://cims.nyu.edu/~tristanb/statement.pdf ? > I should say here why I interpreted their statement the way I did, the in- terpretation I will discuss below. The route to the Clay problem through a smooth force, options c and d in Fefferman’s statement of the problem, is the route Luis and Diego opened and the one Levent and I had quietly chosen to attack. Almost nobody else I know of was working on it. It is not the direction one arrives at in a few days by giving a model the problem statement. When I heard “forced,” it was a bright red flag. ... > I asked when the first prompt had been sent by them. This question was not answered directly by OpenAI for some time. Eventually it was agreed that it had been sent in the past few days, after information about our work had reached OpenAI. > I asked whether the model had been trained on, or had access to, our sessions in Codex, into which we had been putting all our drafts for the whole of this project. I was told the model did not look up user data. I asked again, about training, and I did not get an answer. It's not a direct accusation, but it's not far off. You shouldn't accuse other people of spreading misinformation when you haven't read the actual sources in question, it's possible that they might know more than you.
tiborsaas 8d ago
2) We are witnessing the intelligence explosion from the first row, wherever this takes us 3) I'm still processing the drama, just found out about it after reading the blog post. If that happened based on private data, that's horrible. If that happened based on public tweets, then it's still abuse of power as OA employees access to compute (launching 10k agents) is quite heavy weight in boxing terms. But apart from AI and drama now that we have working solution to Navier-Stokes, what improvements can we expect in engineering?
- inkysigma 8d ago
  To be quite clear, the solution to the _Navier Stokes problem_ is one in which you get a finite time blow up (i.e. infinite pressure). This is more meant to suggest that Navier Stokes is unphysical in some way which is not necessarily unexpected. There's unlikely to be any engineering applications since even if the solution can be approximated, you still need to set up the initial conditions but at that point you can also drive pressure in other ways.
  - thangalin 8d ago
    The proof of finite-time singularity may impact both fluid dynamics models (CFD) and AI reasoning models. Under specific conditions, Navier–Stokes equations allow velocity to grow infinitely, causing the continuum fluid assumption to break down. Knowing the exact mathematical breakdown mechanisms helps developers improve adaptive mesh refinement and sub-grid scale models around high-vorticity regions (like vortex stretching and turbulent shear layers). While aerodynamic simulations for vehicles operate far from singularity thresholds, their stability at extreme boundaries could improve? Proving out the combination of scaling inference-time compute and agent collaboration to solve previously intractable mathematical problems is WOW. By pairing creative candidate generation with automated proof checkers (like Lean) we are leaning into a repeatable framework for AI-driven scientific discovery.
    - semi-extrinsic 8d ago
      > Knowing the exact mathematical breakdown mechanisms helps developers improve adaptive mesh refinement and sub-grid scale models around high-vorticity regions (like vortex stretching and turbulent shear layers). This is 100% wrong and reads like copy paste of AI slop. Any simulation which uses sub-grid scale models is already solving a different PDE than the actual Navier-Stokes considered in the Millenium problem, and that PDE is guaranteed to have different properties. Full stop. And to claim this is somehow connected to AMR methods is an example of the kind of pseudoscientific statement Wolfgang Pauli would have called "not even wrong".
stefap2 8d ago
This just pushes knowledge work further up the ladder, toward larger and more complex problems. If there are no knowledge workers, who is going to interpret these results, validate them, decide what matters, and put them into practical use? Rather than eliminating knowledge work, advances like this could create entirely new layers of problems to solve and opportunities to pursue, which will create even more jobs and opportunities. This is my optimistic take.
- munificent 8d ago
  > This just pushes knowledge work further up the ladder, toward larger and more complex problems. You really think it makes sense for you to be higher on the "solving complex problems ladder" than the machines that solved fucking Navier-Stokes? I envy your self-confidence.
  - stefap2 8d ago
    Maybe I should have been clearer. My point is that solving something like Navier–Stokes just pushes knowledge work further ahead, onto a new set of bigger and more complex problems. Navier–Stokes is a Millennium problem today, but once problems like that become solvable, they can open the door to entirely new classes of problems we haven’t even thought of yet.
    - FridgeSeal 8d ago
      Building on them without fundamentally understanding is akin to putting on robes, calling yourself a Tech-Priest, worshipping a machine god and doing your best Warhammer 40k impression.
  - mlsu 8d ago
    It seems like there were a couple of human mathematicians that were higher on the 'solving complex problems ladder' than this machine.
    - deleted 8d ago
      [deleted]
trio8453 8d ago
> Do "normies" even know what's happening? No, there are even many non-normies talking about how it's all marketing or try to give balanced take about AI being sometimes a little useful for certain things (but they can do without it anyway).
- ImaCake 8d ago
  I am absolutely struggling to sell my workplace (which is entirely knowledge work) on the usefulness of LLMs for proofreading let alone on automation of hairy parts of our workflows. So yeah, even people who should be able to see what is coming are not looking.
  - sire-vc 8d ago
    Our accountant told me 'he's not letting go of his claude subscription' followed by a long list of things it does for him. And my friend 'nah haven't really used AI' before his description of it clarified he still thinks they are GPT 3.5 chat bots. The world has changed in 12 months and many people didn't notice, and those that did are eating their peers' lunch.
armchairhacker 8d ago
Let's wait until AI solves a longstanding practical problem before "dawn of the singularity" (which could be tomorrow, but still).
- bibimsz 8d ago
  feels like moving the goalpost. is the achievement impressive or isn't it?
  - qlte 8d ago
    The question being posed isn't whether AI is impressive but whether we're at the "dawn of the singularity"
    - bibimsz 8d ago
      i'm observing that rapidly moving goalposts is a feature of the singularity
- reducesuffering 8d ago
  Practical?! The goalposts will keep moving until morale improves (narrator: it doesn't)
  - armchairhacker 8d ago
    The goalposts for the singularity have always been that AI improves itself fully autonomously. AFAIK OpenAI is heavily using AI but still employs human researchers and developers.
    - p1esk 8d ago
      They said they will automate AI researchers by March 2028. I personally think it will happen by March 2027.
  - qlte 8d ago
    Uh I'm pretty sure the "singularity" always presupposed a lot of previously unthinkable technologies becoming part of daily life, and was not ever limited to just computer stuff or math problems. "Moving the goalposts" as shallow dismissal doesn't work if e.g. someone points out AI hasn't even built a new type of spaceship yet in response to a claim that AI is on the verge of building a Dyson sphere.
Bluestein 8d ago
Next month is going to be insane. Month ...
onidj 8d ago
>- Do "normies" even know what's happening? Absolutely not. Even to a lot of techy/nerdy people it's still just a chatbot that they sometimes use to help them at work. Even on here people will do whatever they can to downplay. The lack of fucks given is staggering.
- nozzlegear 8d ago
  How many fucks should be given, in your estimation?
  - senshan 8d ago
    ∀ε>0, ∀x: ‖s−x‖<ε ⟹ |fucks(x)| > 1/ε
tantalor 8d ago
> Are we at the dawn of the singularity now Singularity doesn't "dawn". That's the whole idea. It happens all at once.
- echelon 8d ago
  There's an event horizon and we're maybe past it?
  - tantalor 8d ago
    Heh. Wrong "singularity"
    - FabCH 8d ago
      They meant that even the happens-very-fast AI singularity isn’t sub-picosecond. It still exists in time, and has a duration. The event horizon would then be the time period between the singularity becoming inevitable and it actually happening.
biophysboy 8d ago
Why is a "normie" better off if he hyperventilates like this? In that scenario, they would be screwed AND anxious. If it really is as transformational as you say, then no amount of preparation or awareness matters. You are infinitesimally more ready then they are. Luckily for all of us, there is more to knowledge work then technical implementation.
root_axis 8d ago
It's incredible to me that every single time there's a new model people scream "singularity" from the rooftops and every time they are wrong. This is an impressive result, but there is absolutely zero evidence of "the singularity".
- hackinthebochs 8d ago
  It is not reasonable to not believe anything unless there is "evidence" (narrowly construed as an observation incompatible with the negation of some state of affairs). Beliefs have a wide spectrum of characterizations, and not all belief must wait until publicly corroborated evidence is available. Some events defy evidence and we can and should use experience and reasoning to infer unobservable states of affairs.
  - root_axis 8d ago
    This is olympic level mental gymnastics to justify believing things without evidence. The double negative with the word evidence in scare quotes is chef's kiss.
    - hackinthebochs 8d ago
      I believe the sun will rise tomorrow without "evidence" (again, narrowly construed). We all do. It's only those who abuse the idea of epistemic hygiene who claim otherwise, usually with ulterior motives.
      - root_axis 8d ago
        The evidence is the history of the sun rising since time immemorial, as well as the science of physics and cosmology that models the sun's motion with respect to the earth.
        hackinthebochs 8d ago
        Yes, reasoning with models and making inferences are perfectly acceptable forms of evidence. But you can model the world based on ones knowledge and experience and infer when some event doesn't fit the typical pattern, then form beliefs about what that means. Also perfectly fine from an epistemic perspective. The rejoinder "there's no evidence" to a belief based on such an inference does no work.
baq 8d ago
> - First off, to reiterate, WOW. > - Second of all, when does this end? Are we at the dawn of the singularity now? normalcy overhang n. /NOR-muhl-see OH-ver-hang/ The uncanny period during the Singularity when superintelligence is already accomplishing feats that seem like magic, yet everyday life still looks mostly the same. https://x.com/alexwg/status/2096214373001785794 https://x.com/alexwg/status/2096214373001785794

jampekka 8d ago

> WOW This. I do dislike the AI oligarchs as much as the next person, but I do find the thread full of complaining a bit depressing still. If the result holds (and it looks it does), this may be one of the, if not the, biggest things to happen in computing to date. A lot bigger than e.g. Deep Blue beating Kasparov in chess or AlphaGo beating Sedol in Go.

Eridrus 8d ago
Seeing mathematicians such as Terry Tao being unhappy with open problems being solved makes me sort of question the usefulness of any of this pure mathematics. If we're not happy that the problems are being solved, why care about this field at all?
- karmakurtisaani 8d ago
  Where was Tao unhappy? I thought he was sort of anticipating this.
  - xhevahir 8d ago
    Maybe he was dreading it.
- empath75 8d ago
  He's not unhappy with it being solved, but the solution is less important than the learning you have to do to arrive at the solution. If they're just chucking compute at it and publishing the answer and hiding the path to get there, it sort of negates the whole point of posing such problems to begin with.
- concinds 8d ago
  His issue is more nuanced than that. Most of the value was in humans reaching new insights or new math during failed attempts to solve these problems, whereas AI is basically "too efficient" in beelining to the goal and discards potential new insights reached along the way. I assume this is solvable.