Post #3179055
2025-10-10 19:00 UTC
So the problem looks out of reach of my box of tools, and remains open; but for the "large scale" metric of gaining understanding of the problem, the AI use did help, though mostly in an indirect sense of allowing me to more quickly work through, and then discard, an approach which I now believe to be unsuitable for the problem; I also now know a few more differential geometry facts that I was not aware of.
It is interesting to compare with my previous experiment https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao/115306424727150237 where I gave the AI a task in which I had quite a good intuition on the outcome. Here, the AI was more creative and supplied inputs that I did not know; but it was also significantly harder to trust and guide the AI in productive directions. There does seem to be some value in interacting with AI on problems slightly outside of one's area of expertise, but one certainly has to proceed with caution and situational awareness. (8/8)
Replies (2)
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@barrygoldman1@sauropods.win 2025-10-10 19:22
@tao@mathstodon.xyz I hav a simple question about prime numbers. Where is a good place to ask it?
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@tchauhan@mastodon.mit.edu 2025-10-11 12:38
@tao@mathstodon.xyz Thanks for sharing. Have indeed noticed this in my field too. Very helpful in exposing ideas you may not have been familiar with. But its sycophancy means you have to be very careful at all times about hallucinations. In problems where you have a good grasp of the literature this is a synergetic collaboration, but in problems where you are less confident it is indeed a minefield and tends to make tasks take longer.