Import AI 445: Timing superintelligence; AIs solve frontier math proofs; a new ML research benchmark

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Economist: Don’t worry about AI-driven unemployment, because people like paying for the ‘human touch’:
…Even when you have the technology to automate something, you might still pick a human…Adam Ozimek, chief economist at the Economic Innovation Group, has written a blog noting that even if AI gets much, much better and is capable of doing all the work that people do, there will still be some jobs for humans because people seem to have a preference for humans over machines in certain domains.
“There are many jobs and tasks that easily could have been automated by now - the technology to automate them has long existed - and yet we humans continue to do them,” he writes. “The reason is that demand will always exist for certain jobs that offer what I call “the human touch.”

Some examples here: Live music, actors, waiters, travel agents, and many types of sales job. And it seems like as you want to spend more and more on a given good or experience, you may want more contact with people: “the human touch also appears to be what economists call a “normal good,” which means the demand for it goes up as income goes up,” he writes. Some examples here might include fancy restaurants, and other concierge–like experiences.
Why this matters - one path through the AI revolution could be a rise in human-to-human work: My assumption is that ‘people like people’, and there is a high chance that even if AI automates huge chunks of the current economy there will be a boom in demand for ‘human artisans’ for a range of new jobs we can’t yet imagine, and for refinement of existing human professions. There’s also a chance that through a combination of economic growth and progressive policy work from governments that wages for these jobs could go up massively.
Read more: AI and the Economics of the Human Touch (Agglomerations, Substack).

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Facebook makes a better recommender system, and figures out some recommender scaling laws:
…Kunlun is another nice example of what industrial AI looks like…
Facebook has published details on Kunlun, a recommendation system which is more efficient than previous ones developed by the ad behemoth. Along with this, Facebook has also ...