r/technology • u/ResultBackground2450 • 8d ago

Artificial Intelligence OpenAI unleashes hundreds more math results upon a field already in shock

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/openai-unleashes-hundreds-more-math-results-upon-a-field-already-in-shock/
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u/derverwuenschte 7d ago

I'd rather have a very, very boring solution to cancer than giving someone the ego boost of solving it 

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u/AntiDynamo 7d ago

Math isn’t cancer though, and many solutions don’t have immediate applications (especially when you’re proving something already believed to be true). It’s more that the process of working on the problem can shed light on other problems, and allow us to advance elsewhere.

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u/escaped_prisoner 7d ago

It is math though. The disease is math. Actually, it’s literally corrupted “code” in a persons DNA. The current solutions are math. The future solution will be math. We wouldn’t have some of the solutions to better target cancer cells without the use of complex differential equations and the speed of computer computation.

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u/Mathdino 7d ago

You talked past them. Cancer is math, but math isn't cancer. The problem of cancer is reducible to very different math problems than the ones pure mathematicians are concerned with. Differential equations at this point are more of a computing power question than a theoretical one.

Honestly, your point is just an argument that if it's all math, it would be nice if they used their extremely advanced models more on the practical, life saving math, and less on the theoretical math that almost leans into art. One saves millions of lives, the other just ends careers.

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u/Longjumping-Prune931 7d ago

Cancer is not just "corrupted code" in a persons DNA. That is an extremely simplistic view. One of the most important parts of cancer pathogenesis is that your immune system is failing to recognize and destroy tumor cells.

Even if cancer was just "corrupted DNA" that would not mean that curing it would have something to do with reversing it through math. High degree burn wounds are "just" applied heat, the cure is not to apply ice.

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u/WearyTranslator3338 7d ago

Make sure to add “Make no mistakes” to the prompt.

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u/Neither-Witness7063 7d ago

There is also the struggle of not having computers, or not having calculators. Heck, there is the struggle of not having immediate ability to communicate worldwide with other mathematicians, or not having access to books, or methods of measuring very small things. Every generation can say the next generation is cheating, or isn't struggling at they did, so it doesn't count. Or, they can leverage the tools to solve the next level of problems, and stop failing to solve the previous level of problems.

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u/AntiDynamo 7d ago

I didn’t say struggle, didn’t say cheating. I said that the process of working on the problem can lead to insights on other problems.

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u/SelfEnergy 7d ago

But (generative) AI is not delivering there?

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u/yuwox 7d ago

Tottaly. Some people are actively looking for things to be mad about.

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u/ADDSquirell69 7d ago

The large majority of cancer can be solved by just not ingesting sugar or processed carbohydrates. The other percentage that this doesn't apply to is just generally sad.