None of it is really from logical thought. The rationalizations don't make any sense, but they haven't for a while. It's an emotional response. Honestly, It's to be expected.
It's because HN is not really full of smart people. It's full of people who think they're smart and take pride in that idea that they're pretty intelligent.
ChatGPT equalizes intelligence. And that is an attack on their identity. It also exposes their ACTUAL intelligence which is to say most of HN is not too smart.
how can you ask this question with on a post titled "Amateur armed with ChatGPT solves an Erdős problem"???? are you looking for some randomised control trial? omg
God, do people not read my posts? I wrote this: "It also exposes their ACTUAL intelligence which is to say most of HN is not too smart."
These types of people need citations for the time of day. They don't know how to debate or discuss in abstract terms. Reality freezes over if no scientific papers exist on the topic.
> These types of people need citations for the time of day. They don't know how to debate or discuss in abstract terms. Reality freezes over if no scientific papers exist on the topic.
Oh man you have captured the exact emotion I had. These people need randomised control trials to prove any inane thing lmaoo. Reddit brained I tell you
Idk, going out on a limb and guessing the folks who hang out on erdosproblems.com aren’t run-of-the-mill dumbasses. The prompt, if you look at it, is actually quite clever. Not as clever as the proof. But far from the equalization OP posits.
AI equalizes intelligence in the sense that it closes the gap. Not perfectly, not infinitely, but directionally. The distribution compresses. The floor rises faster than the ceiling, so people who used to be far apart end up operating much closer together.
You can already see it in the Erdős example. The person who wrote that prompt wasn’t some random idiot. It took real cleverness to even set it up that way. But the fact that they could get that far, with assistance, is exactly the point. The distance between “amateur” and “expert” shrinks when the tool fills in large parts of the path.
Now extend that forward. Today it’s one clever person, one problem, one careful interaction. As the tooling improves, that same pattern scales. Better reasoning, better search, better guidance. The amount of lift the tool provides increases, which means the gap continues to narrow.
All the supposed “counterpoints” people bring up are already implied in the claim. “Equalize” here obviously means moving closer to equality. Is it NOT obvious that LLMs don't actually equalize intelligence to a level of 100%? Do I actually need to spell that out? If there was nothing at stake, I wouldn't need to.
But instead people latch onto the most absurd version possible, knock that down, and act like they’ve said something meaningful. It’s the same mindset as that guy demanding a formal paper or citation for an observation you can see unfolding in real time. Not because it’s unclear, but because engaging with the actual claim is uncomfortable. It’s easier to distort it into something extreme and dismiss it than to admit the gap is closing.
I’ll agree the top of the stack may have compressed downwards. But that leaves open the possibilities that (a) the ceiling has risen and (b) the floor isn’t really moving, inasmuch as productively engaging with any tool required baseline intelligence.
More pointedly, I don’t think anyone who opposes AI does so because they want to remain the smart kid in the room.
> If there was nothing at stake, I wouldn't need to
You’re on HN buddy. If you measure stakes by how pedantically you’re challenged, everything will rise to existential terms.
Yes, I love living in communism too. Imagine if you had to pay money for it or something. The wealthiest people would get unrestricted access to intelligence while the poor none. And the people in the middle would eventually find themselves unable to function without a product they can no longer afford. Chilling, huh? Good thing humans are known for sharing in the benefits of technological progress equally. /s
His core issue is jealousy and fear. I don't think these types of people are at the top of the intelligence curve (more closer to bottom) but that is orthogonal to my point. What I'm saying is his personality archetype makes him think (keyword) he's at the top of the intelligence curve and an equalization means, personally to him, that he's losing his edge.
More specific to HN is the archetype of: "I have spent years honing my craft as a expert programmer, my identity is predicated on being an expert programmer in which high intelligence is causal and associated positively with my identity" That's why ironically most of HN was completely wrong about AI. They were wrong about driverless cars, they claimed vibe coding was trash. It's the people who think (keyword) their stupid/average (aka general public) who got it right... because perceptually they stand to gain from the equalization.
Anyway.. this fear and jealousy is not something most humans can admit to themselves. Nobody will actually be able to realize that these emotions drive there thinking. They have to lie to themselves and rationalize a different reality. That's why you get absurdist takes like this.
To everyone reading. It is obviously that chatGPT does not equalize intelligence to the point of 100%. That statement is obviously not saying that. Everyone knows this. You want proof?:
Look at the declaration of independence... without getting to pedantic: "All Men are created equal" is not saying all Males are 100% equal. Everyone knows this. First off no one is 100% equal.. and second the statement in a modern context is obviously not referring to only men. It is referring to women&men and clearly men and women are nowhere near equal.
So if you all know this about the declaration of independence... how can you not see the same nuance for: "ChatGPT equalizes intelligence."? First ask yourself... do you think you're smart? If you do, then the self delusion I just described is likely happening with you.
They used ChatGPT Pro to solve it. Over 50% of people in the world couldn't afford ChatGPT Pro ($200/mo) even if they spent more than half of their income on it. [1]
What was that about "spreading FUD about unaffordability"?
They didn't buy ChatGPT Pro themselves. You could've done the same as the students in the article and get a free subscription if you were interested in this instead of trolling.
"All men are created equal" is obviously not literally saying all humans are 100% equal. Just like how "ChatGPT equalizes intelligence" is not saying ChatGPT equalizes the intelligence of all humans to a level of 100%.
I'm not going to spell out what I meant by: "ChatGPT equalizes intelligence". You can likely figure it out for yourself, because the problem doesn't have anything to do with your reading comprehension. The problem is more akin to self delusion, you don't want to face reality so you interpret the statement from the most absurdist angle possible.
The admins at HN actually noticed this tendency among people and encoded it into the rules: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
It is not “absurdist” to call out a baseless claim that doesn’t take into account over half of humanity, a percentage that will grow even further once investor money inevitably runs out. If your response to that is to wave away more than 4 billion people, then you’re not even trying to look like you care about reality, you’re just trying to make yourself feel better with some made-up nonsense.
You seem to be under the misconception that you somehow “own” ChatGPT or are entitled to the insight it provides. You don’t and you aren’t. You are at the mercy of trillion-dollar private companies that owe you nothing. Their products’ intelligence is not your intelligence. Whatever profits you’re seeing from it, it’s currently losing them money. And when that changes, so will your image of them as benefactors of humanity who make intelligence available to all.
ChatGPT equalizes intelligence. And that is an attack on their identity. It also exposes their ACTUAL intelligence which is to say most of HN is not too smart.