Hacker News: unknownian

New comment by unknownian in "It's still ok to enjoy programming"

unknownian — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 02:12:12 +0000

It also ignores the fact that among fashion enthusiasts (hardcore consumers NOT producers) handmade and artisanal clothing is generally preferred.

New comment by unknownian in "Who Taught the Machines Mathematics?"

unknownian — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 10:57:33 +0000

The problem is this: “Astra write me a masters thesis applying new techniques programming language theory to Rust” is not using a tool, it’s hiring someone to do the work and thinking for you.

I have difficulty figuring out how to solve this issue.

New comment by unknownian in "Who Taught the Machines Mathematics?"

unknownian — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 20:37:12 +0000

Some of these academics are still alive. Perhaps it was due to propaganda as you were saying, but I really believe that they meant it.

New comment by unknownian in "Who Taught the Machines Mathematics?"

unknownian — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 12:48:43 +0000

The main problem is that without safeguards it becomes impossible to adjudicate new work in math or CS, meaning grad students who care about originality in work will have little sense of accomplishment if the AI gives them all the answers and will decide to study something else. Not to mention that AI users in math/CS are often ignoring standards in publishing, including issues with plagiarism and scooping of work. These are pretty serious problems that will end up causing a lot of people to move to other subjects.

New comment by unknownian in "Who Taught the Machines Mathematics?"

unknownian — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 12:20:22 +0000

If you read any classic mathematics or computer science textbook, you get the sense that the author wants to impart the idea that this subject leads to an interesting and meaningful life. There are many famous quotes about being the architect or designer of an idea rather than just a technician holding a power tool following instructions someone else wrote. Now all of those adages have become effectively meaningless because so many involved in these careers are cool with the industry dying for some vague notion of progress due to a machine god. It’s a pathetic state of affairs that the elders aren’t speaking out more to protect the next generation of human thinking.

I say this as someone who uses LLMs in the physical sciences (one of the only areas where I would say it is ethical to use them).

New comment by unknownian in "Now That Information Is Free, What's a College Campus For?"

unknownian — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 16:11:30 +0000

As someone who cares a lot about AI/LLMs making breakthroughs in certain areas like medicine due to my own history with health problems, if it means all the stimulating experiences of life become meaningless, sometimes I wonder if it will be worth it in the end. Which is why I dread the future where their negative externalities aren’t reigned in.

New comment by unknownian in "What should we tell our students?"

unknownian — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 16:06:27 +0000

You think a top 2 greatest mathematician alive is out of touch?

New comment by unknownian in "What should we tell our students?"

unknownian — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 14:24:26 +0000

It’s more like avoiding looking at the answer key while doing homework to be able to pass an exam and to understand the material better, especially for the grad students who haven’t gotten their PhDs yet. Personally I think responsible AI use is possible (not all AHM members completely avoid AI, but it’s notable that some heavy hitters do), but it’s best not to use a closed model trying to replace you. Use an open model that won’t train on your data.

New comment by unknownian in "What should we tell our students?"

unknownian — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 08:38:48 +0000

How do you think a PhD committee should referee a dissertation where all the ideas came from AI?

New comment by unknownian in "What should we tell our students?"

unknownian — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 08:36:39 +0000

I don’t have a problem with using AI in the applied sciences once a researcher has proven their skills. I do have a problem with it damaging education, the pure math pipeline, and art.

New comment by unknownian in "What should we tell our students?"

unknownian — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 08:32:43 +0000

There are an infinite number of problems that require a unique proof (you can prove this btw). Yes maybe you need to work harder to find a more obscure problem now but why give up the fight already? I believe that students should have the right to intellectually stimulating education. If you really need to use AI, go for something that isn’t trying to put you out of business or destroy your right to a decent education, like a local open weights LLM.

New comment by unknownian in "What should we tell our students?"

unknownian — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 07:36:42 +0000

You tell them to cancel their Astra subscriptions and get to work. Hundreds of mathematicians, including Peter Scholze, have already agreed to not use AI at all. There’s absolutely no reason to help train an AI that will just make your own life more miserable.

https://www.ahmath.org/members

New comment by unknownian in "OpenAI, the Partition Principle, and Mathematics"

unknownian — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 00:55:02 +0000

The best part is that when the academics fix OAI’s issues, the model gets better and OAI shareholders get richer and more powerful!

As someone who uses LLM tech occasionally, this is why I prefer using open local models. If I’m making myself obsolete, at least I’m not making some asshole richer and their closed model better.

New comment by unknownian in "Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science"

unknownian — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 18:55:38 +0000

Lmao what a ridiculous response. Yes, some mathematicians and artists are in it to feel smart. But the vast majority also just enjoy the process. Having a computer do all the work for you and just typing prompts in ruins that completely. As Ronny Chieng said in his Harvard speech, the journey is the point.

>Any mathematician in academic or industry is more than likely not a "pure math" person (tainted by capitalism)

Ignoring that I meant pure as in non applied math, let's just make it clear: you agree that mathematicians who are against capitalism encroaching on this process should be allowed to dislike it without criticism of being pretentious?

New comment by unknownian in "Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science"

unknownian — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 15:56:22 +0000

You shouldn't be getting downvoted for something that a majority of pure math and art enthusiasts believe to be true. The truth is many of these entrepreneurs and VCs are obsessed with AI not for money or human progress, but because it makes them feel closer to being a "god" rather than a mere mortal. Much of it (especially AI art) is out of spite for human creativity, which is done by mortals with limitations.

New comment by unknownian in "Pre-2022 Books"

unknownian — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:18:45 +0000

I’m vehemently anti-genAI in creative fields but even I think this metric is stupid and unfair to younger generations and generations to come, even if genAI writing gets better.

If you can’t trust a contemporary writer to not use genAI, then find another interest with true zero trust creative verification (like improv) because copying and cheating on writing has existed for decades.

However, my unpopular opinion is extremist in another way: societies should probably not tolerate AI in creative fields like creative writing at all, if Sora can be shut down, so can other useless and toxic parts of LLMs.

New comment by unknownian in "HashiCorp adopts Business Source License"

unknownian — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 01:14:11 +0000

>like the AGPL?

As I explained in an earlier thread, MongoDB tried using AGPL. AGPL is not a barrier for Amazon, they still will resell your product without contributing. MongoDB ended up using a variant of AGPL that is even stricter (requiring the entire tech stack to be under the same license) but is no longer considered FOSS. Until the attitude changes around what FOSS is, this will keep happening.

New comment by unknownian in "Please release nano under less restrictive license so we can use it"

unknownian — Sun, 30 Apr 2023 16:17:43 +0000

Are you disagreeing with me or just giving more detail? Because I think that's what I was saying. My opinion is that this is not fair to a company like MongoDB.

New comment by unknownian in "Please release nano under less restrictive license so we can use it"

unknownian — Sun, 30 Apr 2023 03:25:15 +0000

Then why did Mongo relicense? I assumed that AGPL was not enough to maintain their business which is why they are now using a more extreme form of AGPL that is no longer considered Free.

New comment by unknownian in "Please release nano under less restrictive license so we can use it"

unknownian — Sun, 30 Apr 2023 02:38:43 +0000

I enjoyed the post and this is off-topic but when I was younger I was very pro-GPL and I still like copyleft, but to me the logic behind it makes less and less sense as time goes on. RMS compares software to a physical book you can modify, make copies of, and share with your friends, but in my opinion, software is much more like a power drill, a tool you can modify with difficulty and let people borrow. The analogy for software as media is also ironic because the FSF themselves claim that the GPL is not intended for media works and recommend other licenses (like Creative Commons which I support).

I do like the idea that GPL prevents big corps from taking advantage of programmers, but the idea that a GPL program is inherently better than a proprietary program written by an independent developer no longer makes sense to me, though independent proprietary software is often abandoned. But more importantly, it doesn't seem fair when a company makes an AGPL devops tool and then a bigger corp just sells that product as a service. When companies like MongoDB decide to change their licenses so that Amazon doesn't steal all their customers, I don't feel bad about it at all. I have no skin in this game but it blows my mind that there are FSF people who defend massive corporations essentially reselling a smaller company's work solely for the sake of ideological purity. Someone can correct me if I've been misinformed here.