I'm not at all anti-AI, but I'm still holding my breath to see real scientific contributions coming from modern (LLM/CoT/agent) AI. Much of the premise behind "AI will make superabundance a reality" hinges on getting AI-driven science that affects everyday lives Anthropic's quasi-CRISPR-like discovery did not seem super compelling, and that is still the best I have seen. If anyone has more heartening stories that could convince me to be an optimist, please do share ;)
What I think the parent post is missing is that breakthroughs in science don't immediately translate into breakthroughs in engineering and even less so into economically viable products.
There’s been a tendency since well before LLMs for AI demos to focus on “here’s a new problem we made up that it solves that you could imagine will soon transfer to an existing real problem” as opposed to “AI solves X”. This has been an ongoing challenge, it does cool stuff and looks so promising but has been very hard to harness for useful work. It’s still going to take time before the hype dies down and we see what’s left.
I don’t think it’s going away, LLMs and other ML stuff will no doubt remain part of people’s workflow, but I also see no evidence for superabundance or anything close to it.
I’d be surprised if that isn’t already the case with CERN itself already being a multi-national collaboration project and with things like GÉANT https://geant.org/ existing
Man, when I was doing my PhD at CERN the most far out thing that we were generally allowed to use was boosted decision trees :) getting anything other than that approved for any Higgs-related analysis was… not a thing.
I think there is a large group of commenters who actually just hate silicon valley tech companies, and they're fine with AI as long as it comes from someone else.
AI has been beneficial in multiple research fields across maths and science. That is to say, it's actually benefited humanity in those particular use cases.
As opposed to enshitifying the lives of the working class in most other areas.
Using AI as a tool to investigate the mysteries of the universe is a huge win for humanity. Generating slop images to confuse people online is not. AI is tool, we like when tools are used for good.
Maturity is understanding there's an enormous range between "like" and "dislike", between "love" and "hate", between "good" and "bad", and its also possible to be neither at once or both at once.
I'm not at all anti-AI, but I'm still holding my breath to see real scientific contributions coming from modern (LLM/CoT/agent) AI. Much of the premise behind "AI will make superabundance a reality" hinges on getting AI-driven science that affects everyday lives Anthropic's quasi-CRISPR-like discovery did not seem super compelling, and that is still the best I have seen. If anyone has more heartening stories that could convince me to be an optimist, please do share ;)
Is math or theoretical Computer Science not "real science"? Whatever one may think about the process, the results are real and are coming from LLMs.
well they don't affect anyone's day-to-day lives, which is what the person you're replying to is talking about..
It is.
What I think the parent post is missing is that breakthroughs in science don't immediately translate into breakthroughs in engineering and even less so into economically viable products.
This post so perfectly captures the tragedy of how the term AI has lost its meaning to LLMs.
There’s been a tendency since well before LLMs for AI demos to focus on “here’s a new problem we made up that it solves that you could imagine will soon transfer to an existing real problem” as opposed to “AI solves X”. This has been an ongoing challenge, it does cool stuff and looks so promising but has been very hard to harness for useful work. It’s still going to take time before the hype dies down and we see what’s left.
I don’t think it’s going away, LLMs and other ML stuff will no doubt remain part of people’s workflow, but I also see no evidence for superabundance or anything close to it.
I hope European university networks and their underfunded labs will join forces as soon as possible with other European national research centers.
I’d be surprised if that isn’t already the case with CERN itself already being a multi-national collaboration project and with things like GÉANT https://geant.org/ existing
Man, when I was doing my PhD at CERN the most far out thing that we were generally allowed to use was boosted decision trees :) getting anything other than that approved for any Higgs-related analysis was… not a thing.
Great news, let them cook.
Wonderful news to not see the duopoly accelerating real science.
This is great progress in fundamental research and I’m thrilled to see Mistral leading it.
Makes perfect sense and I’m glad that CERN is focusing on EU providers
hope we get ethical use of AI unlike OpenAI shenanigan
Wait, so we like AI now?
AI != GPT
Some people do, some people don't. Some it depends on what for and how it's used as well, as well as what kind.
I think there is a large group of commenters who actually just hate silicon valley tech companies, and they're fine with AI as long as it comes from someone else.
Poetic considering the locale. But ya, modern tech is pretty gross, and I yearn for the open models.
1. Yes. 2. Maybe
AI has been beneficial in multiple research fields across maths and science. That is to say, it's actually benefited humanity in those particular use cases.
As opposed to enshitifying the lives of the working class in most other areas.
Using AI as a tool to investigate the mysteries of the universe is a huge win for humanity. Generating slop images to confuse people online is not. AI is tool, we like when tools are used for good.
Maturity is understanding there's an enormous range between "like" and "dislike", between "love" and "hate", between "good" and "bad", and its also possible to be neither at once or both at once.