[lioeters]

Sorry for the harsh tone in a comment above, reading it over I see that was unnecessary and rude. I did enjoy the story of the plumbers during the regular flooding in Chicago, much respect to their hard work.

While we may not agree on the question of the magical genie of all knowledge, whether an artist or scientist would/should welcome its gift (or bargain with the devil) for an instant answer - it was interesting to note that we implicitly knew the genie is not just a theoretical thought experiment, but a real thing that is happening.

The genie's out of the bottle, that much we can agree on, I think. Sooner or later it has the potential to become a better plumber, artist, and scientist, more skilled and knowledgeable than any living person. A day may come when a magnificent AI artist will wow the world with its creations, and even skeptics will have to admit that, damn, that is impressive. But then again, so what? I'd rather have the genie wading through sewage to fix plumbing, so that a plumber could spend more time with their family and pursue that novel they've been dreaming of writing, or painting in the backyard, or working on a mad science project in the basement.

[tptacek]

I believe this too: that the current moment with LLMs is destabilizing to all sorts of knowledge work, and especially to non-bench-work sciences, but that over the long run it's just going to raise the game. I'm not a person who thinks LLMs are going to moot all human scientific endeavor. I know those people exist (both on the anti-AI and especially pro-AI side). That's not where I'm coming from.

I just think knocking out unsolved problems in mathematics is an absolute good. Imagine, in a more grounded analogy, a whole family of neo-Ramanujans discovered somewhere in Namibia, and then tearing through all the open problems, upturning a bunch of careers in the west in the process. It's hard to argue that would be a bad thing (I think we'd call it miraculous). But AI has a partisan valence that sometimes obscures what's happening.

I appreciate the generous response. My tone couldn't have been any better (and I didn't really read yours as harsh, just spirited). Way to be an excellent HN'er! :)