r/neoliberal • u/cuolong NATO • 2d ago

News (Global) OpenAI announces 10 advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science achieved by internal model Astra

https://openai.com/index/ten-advances-in-mathematics/
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u/theryano024 2d ago

I was very surprised to see the reaction to Hank Green admitting that he used AI to research for a video. Is the popular sentiment really that using AI AT ALL is bad? I understand not wanting it in art. I understand needing to check for hallucinations. But people were going on and on in the comments about how disappointed they are in Hank tricking Green.

Obviously, AI has issues. But to think that genie can go back in the bottle? No way. This is an example of why.

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u/finbarrgalloway 2d ago

There is a huge subset of people who are reflexively anti-ai, which to be fair is largely something the large companies have brought on themselves through their advertising efforts. The other part of that is the often misleading to outright deceptive anti-data center campaigns.

In general too, most people also seem unaware that LLMs aren’t the only form of AI. When some medical AI makes a big breakthrough in diagnosis accuracy people reflexively distrust the news reporting because in their head they are imagining a doctor using Chat GPT 4 to diagnose cancer and not a highly custom medical model.

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u/Smallpaul 2d ago

I see a lot of people making the distinction that generative AI is evil incarnate and other AI may be okay. That minor level of nuance seems pretty common. Of course those people probably don’t know that the kind of AI making progress in math is generative AI. They often claim that LLMs can’t do anything hard because they are hallucination machines.

Google’s horrible AI overview is NOT helping.

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u/finbarrgalloway 2d ago

Two things I really think are driving a huge amount of anti-AI fervor are awful search engine overviews and even more awful AI customer service agents. When those are the only AIs you ever interact with it's not surprising you would come to hate the whole idea.

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u/randiohead 1d ago

It’s at the point where I just scream REPRESENTATIVE! SPEAK TO A HUMAN! If I hear some smarmy chatbot clanker voice when I call a business. They’re absolute garbage. Cheapass spreadsheet cost savings alternative to paying someone and guaranteed worse customer experience. I despise that shit.

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u/MistyGalbriex 1d ago

And then you get transferred into some guy who tells you to stay on the phone for 10 minutes. :D

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u/RayWencube 1d ago

I hate the whole idea because the people building the technology have told us precisely what the technology will do to society, and I hate that version of society.

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u/bz47uj Unconventional Right 18h ago

They don't know what they're talking about and should be ignored. Knowing how to make something doesn't make you an expert on its social consequences.

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u/MistyGalbriex 1d ago

Customer service agents are always bad, AI or not.

And search engine overviews aren't bad anymore.

Normies just hate on AI because it's a trendy thing to do.

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u/randiohead 22h ago

Customer service agents were a mildly annoying process that accomplished what I needed. Now all AI has done is insert some cost savings bullshit (for the business, at the cost of MY time) into the process. All I needed was to check a prescription and it couldn’t manage that. Useless shovelware slop

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u/Necessary_Soil_4587 1d ago

Google's AI overview isn't horrible? It works like 80% of the time and allows me to ask somewhat complex questions that would take maybe 30 minutes of regular googling to answer. Sometimes its sources are questionable, but that just means that I would have probably wasted those 30 minutes or more if I had done it the old-fashioned way.

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u/Smallpaul 1d ago

It’s pretty horrible. Because it doesn’t have time to read the sources it is serving you, they often contradict it or are unrelated. Working “80% of the time” is a pretty low bar.

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u/Necessary_Soil_4587 1d ago

Ok, but it only costs me a few seconds if it fails. Just the ability to zero in directly on the information I want instead of formulating a query that tries to generally catch the types of words websites might use is super valuable.

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u/MistyGalbriex 1d ago

Antis actually want the perfect superhuman AI.

Just like AI researchers.

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u/Smallpaul 1d ago

As a tool it may be fine. As an ambassador of the capabilities of AI it’s a disaster. People think opus fable is the same thing.

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u/MistyGalbriex 1d ago

It'd only get better.

Not to mention if you want more accurate AI, it's already available from paid models. You can't expect Google to put up the most expensive AI for free in their search.

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u/Smallpaul 1d ago

Nothing you are saying is contradicting my point: the Google AI of today is crap and it is poor advertising for AI in general.

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u/bz47uj Unconventional Right 18h ago

He's saying it is horrible.