OpenAI’s amazing — but vastly oversold — new model Astra
4 hours ago
- Astra is impressive but its capabilities are being vastly oversold, with many committing the fallacy of composition by assuming math prowess implies general intelligence.
- Expertise in one domain, like math, does not guarantee expertise in all domains, which is why multidimensional theories of intelligence exist.
- Math is a special case for AI because it allows for easy verification and generation of synthetic data, advantages that do not extend to most real-world problems.
- OpenAI's announcement lacks essential details, such as the number of conjectures attempted and the true cost including human labor, making it hard to evaluate significance.
- Astra is good at some kinds of math but not all, and autoformalization—converting human math into formal logic—remains unsolved.
- Claims that Astra represents the Singularity or the most significant day in math history are absurd; it is not comparable to development of calculus or algebra.
- There is no reason to think Astra will fix reliability issues in other AI systems, like extracting data from arbitrary PDFs or creative writing.
- Despite hype, Astra is a remarkable but narrow achievement, not a universal solvent or automated scientific discovery engine.