> But matrix multiplication, to which our civilization is now devoting so many of its marginal resources, has all the elegance of a man hammering a nail into a board.
Elegance is a silly critique. Imagine instead we were spending trillions on floral bouquets, calligraphy, and porcelain tea sets. I would argue that would be a bad allocation of resources.
What matters to me is whether it solves the problems we have. Not how elegant we are in doing so. And to the extent AI fails to do that, I think those are valid critiques. Not how elegant it is.
> Imagine instead we were spending trillions on floral bouquets, calligraphy, and porcelain tea sets. I would argue that would be a bad allocation of resources.
And I would argue it wouldn't. So? It's a value call.
> What matters to me is whether it solves the problems we have.
Again, what is and is not a problem is a value call. "Lacking tools to surveil and control the population" and "having population that demands its share of economic output" arguably are problems for someone which AI probably could solve. "The planet is literally on fire" is another problem (for, arguably, much bigger number of someones) and pouring terawatts of energy into chips that, coincidentally, do AI-related matrix multiplications, won't solve that problem.
the aesthetics of math and physics is by far the most boring discussion that can be had. i used to be utterly repulsed by such talk in undergrad - beauty this and that. it absolutely always felt affected and put on - as if you talk about it enough, you'll actually convince people outside of the major to give you the same plaudits as real artists.... yea right lol.
I will emphasize your point more forcefully. All mathematicians I know work on what they work because of the beauty and aesthetics in their field.
Much like sex. Sex has reproductive utility but that's not why most people engage in it. Those who do are are missing much.
Notion of beauty for a mathematician is quite specialized. It's the difference between spaghetti code that works and an elegant and efficient code that is correct. They are easy to build upon efficiently.
My guy you know lots of people in here have read Feynman right? You should cite him instead of pretending you were clever enough to come up with the analogy yourself.
Quite the contrary. I expect majority of HN readers to know the quote, base 0 if you will, and not harbor thoughts that by having read it they are a part of an exclusive club.
Channeling Good Will Hunting much huh? Most HN'ers would have watched that too.
I have no idea what you're trying to say - it is generally understood everywhere in the world (ie all forms of human culture) that it's pathetic to pass off someone else's insights as your own.
> You can still find citations of those papers to this day.
That's not what I contested. What fraction of people who use differentials in their published work still cite Newton or Leibnitz was the point. You can count number of such citations in last 10 years of say neural nets literature, or applied maths literature and report. Thats plenty of use.
Citations to their differential calculus that are still made are mostly in the context of history of math.
Seems numeracy or comprehension is not your strong point. LOL.
> What fraction of people who use differentials in their published work still cite Newton or Leibnitz was the point
Those papers were written in the 1600s. "The character of physical law", the essay you're ripping off, was written in 1964. 100% papers from the 1960s are cited every single time the techniques are used.
You are as tedious as the original refrain I was complaining about (which is not at all ironic). What's most tedious is you're not actually a mathematician but presume to speak for them.
And an HN comment is not a scientific paper. When I tell people about ideas I find insightful, I don't cite a proper source either. If they like the idea I might tell them later, how I got it or where they can find more detail about the idea.
Honestly quite often an idea did originate in my own thoughts, but the work to put it into well-formed words, which I will use to tell others about it, was done by someone else, whose formulations of the same idea I had, I have read later.
You are changing goal posts now. Your absolute claim was
> it's pathetic to pass off someone else's insights as your own.
To which my point was citations are made when there is an expectation of originality. By now Feynman's anecdotes are folklore and folks wisdom.
OK let's go by your standards. Cooley Tukey's FFT algorithm was "discovered" by them in around 1965. How often do they get a citation when FFT is used, especially in comments on a social site, such as HN is.
LOL even 10 years old results do not get cited because they are considered common knowledge.
That said, Witt's notion of beauty that Propp is critiquing in the posted article is just plane idiotic. Lack of commutativity is not lack of beauty. What a stupid idea.
Mathematical beauty and imagination is different. One of Hilbert's grad students dropped out to become a poet.Hilbert is reported to have said: 'I never thought he had enough imagination to be a mathematician.'
A little unsolicited advice: if you are an aspiring mathematician(I am very happy for you if you are), but if you do not have a sense of a good taste or mathematical beauty, you probably will probably not have a good time.
> if you are an aspiring mathematician, and you do not have a sense of a good taste or mathematical beauty, you probably will probably not have a good time
Lol I have a PhD from a T10 and 15 published papers. I'm pretty sure I don't need your advice on "taste" or "beauty".
Then thanks for your services, your work is literally paying me in my retirement.
The 15 is on the lower side. When I used to be there 15 would be on the uncomfortable side :) Good luck to up the numbers. Oh! do get back on the Cooley Tukey citations and FFT mention ratio.
Lol did you think this was clever? You just literally reiterated exactly what I said. See, if you had said "there are many pianists that find beauty in math" - you know like how many mathematicians find beauty in piano concertos - then you'd have me.
Pianists don't find beauty in written maths, but mathematicians don't usually find beauty in sheet music either. It is the performance, accesible to our senses, that can convey beauty even to amateurs.
Accidentally - in the parts of maths where the concepts can be visualized, such as fractal theory, non-mathematicians seem to love what they see.
People in general perceive music as "what is being played" vs. mathematics "what is being written on a page". This is the common concept, but it is incomplete. Music has its boring parts (notation), so does maths, but the general public is prone to confuse maths as a whole with its "sheet music".
Elegance is a silly critique. Imagine instead we were spending trillions on floral bouquets, calligraphy, and porcelain tea sets. I would argue that would be a bad allocation of resources.
What matters to me is whether it solves the problems we have. Not how elegant we are in doing so. And to the extent AI fails to do that, I think those are valid critiques. Not how elegant it is.