Eric Compeau

Math PhD candidate studying dynamics, geometry and information processing in complex systems. Middling but enthusiastic musician

[Eric Compeau @EricCompeau]

@tomstello_ @allTheYud You're a professor at CMU, who does work in Human-Computer interaction. You have got to have the basic habit and research chops to check this sort of thing independently of the reasoning trace. It's basic to decent scholarly practice around these systems.

[Eric Compeau @EricCompeau]

@tomstello_ No man, that's not intelligence in a meaningful sense. It's just search, but with the original source obscured.

[Eric Compeau @EricCompeau]

@deontologistics @littmath And for what it's worth, I think that Daniel does a generally good job in presenting a reasonable and defensible assessment of AI progress in math, and you could do much worse in tracking the meaning of its progress than by following the news through him

[Eric Compeau @EricCompeau]

@deontologistics @littmath Thanks! It took me some time to get around to reading your piece, but I think I understand your point much better now, and I think I basically agree that the developments are sobering in that sense. Thanks for taking the time to elaborate.

[Eric Compeau @EricCompeau]

@florianederer If a human failed in the same ways that these systems routinely fail, we would see that as evidence of them having no clue what they're talking about. These AI systems perform reasoning-like tasks sufficiently differently from humans that these comparisons are deeply misleading.

[Eric Compeau @EricCompeau]

@mattxiv Really appreciated this interview (and having @EmmaVigeland was stellar)! Out of curiosity, was it a conscious choice not to raise the tension btwn MM's view that it's not her role to determine how 🇮🇱&🇵🇸 coexist, but still advocates a 2 state soln over 1, or for defensive wpnry?

[Eric Compeau @EricCompeau]

@deontologistics Could you say a bit more about what aspect of the progress in mathematics you've found especially sobering, and in what respects? As a mathematician, I've found their progress interesting, but wouldn't escalate to "sobering" tbh. But maybe I'm miscalibrating

[Eric Compeau @EricCompeau]

@poetickate @tunarexia @Metalchondria Damn dating a therapist? Sounds like there may be some erotic transference going on there ngl

[Eric Compeau @EricCompeau]

@Tcho76521726 @no_earthquake Those aren't academic communities, they're paper-citation rings

[Eric Compeau @EricCompeau]

@LucaAmb @Kaju_Nut @WKCosmo Like, truly, this is standard so basic to the scholarly enterprise that it baffles me that there is any controversy about this. You simply should not cite things you haven't read. This seems so basic to me.

[Eric Compeau @EricCompeau]

@LucaAmb @Kaju_Nut @WKCosmo Ok, so this seems like a problem with using AI in this manner then. Accurate citations is a basic scholarly standard, and to the extent that AI is bad at this, scholars should be expected to take actions to correct for it (eg. by not being sloppy in their editing)

[Eric Compeau @EricCompeau]

@axelroark @thomasfbloom Well, it's different in at least two cases: you could not use AI and make as many mistakes as you like, or you could use AI, and make sure that you do not make mistakes of the kind that would lead someone to believe that you never checked the AI output

[dzackgarza @dzackgarza]

Hot take: many claiming AI has "solved" research problems are dangerously applying human sociological proof contracts to AI, when in reality we need a *totally* different social contract for what constitutes an acceptable proof from an LLM:

[Eric Compeau @EricCompeau]

@the_good_matty @mathandcobb Professional mathematicians refusing to think or speak about political economy stays undefeated

[Back On This App and It’s Still Hell @wickdchiq]

Please note that AI is part of Carney’s nation-building project

[Eric Compeau @EricCompeau]

@Paul_Melman @shaggysurvives So really there's no truth to this beyond the phrase "basically you feel good"

[Eric Compeau @EricCompeau]

@geogristle All good brother. Twitter's a tricky medium in the best of times and doubly so before coffee. I think I understand your concern better now, and I do think it's good if stories like this inspire folks to try their hand at thinking old problems anew in their own ways

[Eric Compeau @EricCompeau]

@geogristle explicitly leaves open the door for someone who will undertake such a quest to solve the problem, right?

2/2

[Eric Compeau @EricCompeau]

@geogristle Ah, I see. But on that reading, it's hard for me to see how Tao's statement could be meant to rob people of their human spirit. If we take him to be saying that the regular approach of mathematicians does not involve such an epic quest, then this... 1/2