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by weinzierl 336 days ago
"Interestingly, there are also some tasks that can take way longer to verify than to propose a solution. For example, it might take longer to fact-check all the statements in an essay than to write that essay."

I think this point is odd. If you could really come up with a proper solution (a correct essay in this case) faster than to verify it then why not produce the correct solution directly instead of verifying.

And if you argue, but I don't want a different correct essay but I want this one verified my answer is that the corrected essay without flaws is also a different one.

2 comments

I think I might be confused by what you are stating. Are you saying it depends on your definition of "correct"? I think in this case, "verifiable" is what is meant by "correct", and in which case, if you can't verify it, by definition, it can't be correct, right?
Verifiable means you can find a proof that a solution is correct. I am stating that the effort to find this proof can never be more effort than constructing the solution in the first place.

I think where the line of argumentation in the article derails is that the author confused finding a solution with coming up with any odd candidate that could be a solution. The former is serious effort, the latter is trivial. Their Sudoku example is the former, their article example the latter

In this essay I propose that P != NP...