youareundersell

I read the report; it's not complicated. I'm sure there is some basic misunderstanding here.

When I say "alien" I don't mean "magic" and I don't mean "emergent new woo-woo scary ability". I mean, not human in speed/volume. No human can process that amount of raw bulk in that amount of time successfully. And indeed, it's not magic at all. It is enormously mundane actually. It reminds me of old computers being able to do arithmetic at insane speeds compared to humans. It's not magic at all, but to be honest, I have the distinct feeling of goalposts flying all around me. Being able to handle tasks of this complexity.. I don't know about you but I still have to adjust to computers being able to do this and that it's actually "not surprising". I guess I'm getting old.

I can see how you want to calibrate the enthusiasm I see around here as it can be a bit.. well, but it's not necessary for me. I'm not overly enthused by this because I don't care about the NN adjusting itself and RSI etc. I'm sure it's all quite basic but the fact it can do it at all is reason to be.. watchful, IMO. That is to say, I can appreciate the level of capability necessary to do this work successfully, but I do take your point seriously. It made me think, thanks.

Well, our physics is famously incomplete and even if it weren't: math needing infinity is in no way shape or form proof of anything but the nature of math which itself could be nothing but a highly particular construct.

I always find it interesting nobody seriously questions why something so extraordinarily basic as geometry pervades "the universe". I'd say it's much more likely we are mathy creatures and cannot do anything but perceive logical building blocks somewhat reminding me of a guy using a flashlight proclaiming the universe comprises various configurations of spherical lights.

I can imagine infinity just fine and I'm sure many useful things can be inferred from it, but that doesn't mean it exists. Lots of math is possible but does not exist in reality and that's fine, I'm just being honest about the very real boundaries here. I get the feeling many people confuse the map for the territory.

Yes, that's all very interesting (truly) but where does your actual lived experience come into play? That's the part I am talking about, the "in the universe" part, not the "could be" or "in imaginary parts of the possible universe" but the actual, experience-able universe. That's what separates math from physics and IMO math is the one that has to prove its worth not the other way around. I can construct endless internally consistent imaginary worlds with zero bearing on (any) reality.

Yes, mathematicians, you have a job and yes, parts of it are being automated. Can you now stop being hysterical? It's getting a bit .. well, pathetic. The rest of the world knows what you're talking about, it's not unique to your profession and your profession is not in unique and grave danger either. You have copious amounts of gates being kept quite securely compared to other occupations. Chill.

You have clearly not worked with regular people. I clicked the link and the parent is right, it's complete insanity. This does not fly. At all.

I have the exact opposite experience. There nothing I can think of that is infinite in nature. Not only is it impossible to prove infinity empirically ("in the universe"; the only thing that actually matters) but there are exactly zero actual things with an infinite nature of any kind that I can think of. It's a useful imaginary construct that makes fancy math work, that's all.

I might be mistaken but I have the feeling you are not getting the point of this article. Your example is about identifying "facts" in a network. While very interesting is not what strikes me as the main point. The raw ability to state things about NNs is indeed an existing field, but...

The fact you can give an LLM a raw dump of neural weights and it will hand-wire a bunch of changes on the fly is quite something. It's not so much about the OMG! RSI! for me personally, it's more about the fact we are dealing with a system that reasons successfully over a raw bulk of extraordinarily opaque data without breaking a sweat. That ability is alien and we need time to adjust to that.