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An amateur just solved a 60-year-old math problem--by asking AI
"A ChatGPT AI has proved a conjecture with a method no human had thought of. Experts believe it may have further uses."
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/amateur-armed-with-chatgpt-vibe-maths-a-60-year-old-problem/
Liam Price just cracked a 60-year-old problem that world-class mathematicians have tried and failed to solve. He’s 23 years old and has no advanced mathematics training. What he does have is a ChatGPT Pro subscription, which gives him access to the latest large language models from OpenAI.
[snip]
“This one is a bit different because people did look at it, and the humans that looked at it just collectively made a slight wrong turn at move one,” says Terence Tao, a mathematician at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has become a prominent scorekeeper for AI’s push into his field. “What’s beginning to emerge is that the problem was maybe easier than expected, and it was like there was some kind of mental block.”
The question Price solved—or prompted ChatGPT to solve—concerns special sets of whole numbers, where no number in the set can be evenly divided by any other. Erdős called these “primitive sets” because of their connection to similarly indivisible prime numbers.
Liam Price just cracked a 60-year-old problem that world-class mathematicians have tried and failed to solve. He’s 23 years old and has no advanced mathematics training. What he does have is a ChatGPT Pro subscription, which gives him access to the latest large language models from OpenAI.
[snip]
“This one is a bit different because people did look at it, and the humans that looked at it just collectively made a slight wrong turn at move one,” says Terence Tao, a mathematician at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has become a prominent scorekeeper for AI’s push into his field. “What’s beginning to emerge is that the problem was maybe easier than expected, and it was like there was some kind of mental block.”
The question Price solved—or prompted ChatGPT to solve—concerns special sets of whole numbers, where no number in the set can be evenly divided by any other. Erdős called these “primitive sets” because of their connection to similarly indivisible prime numbers.
A computer solving a math problem is not exactly groundbreaking, but it is interesting that a LLM could show humans a new way to approach these problems. That is something that is, well, different....
4 replies
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Somebody should make a SMM (Small Mind Model) to help us make sense of those two idiots....
I'm pretty sure they run on AI: Actual Ignorance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching_divination
It's a very clever thing these imitation intelligence companies are doing. If a thousand people are attempting to solve these kinds of problems with their "free" AI products and 999 of these attempts fail, they can still trumpet the rare success and ignore the 999 people who were simply wasting everyone's time by using the product.
Or worse...
We'll know soon enough what this technology is good for and what it is not good for. I suspect these huge investments in giant data centers and the like have overshot the mark.
