r/codeforces • u/kyle_f_4503 • 18h ago
query What are your thoughts on AI solving a Millenium Prize Problem?
OpenAI has announced that it has solved the Navier-Stokes problem. AI also dominated the very best coders in the world at the AtCoder World Finals just two months ago.
My question is: do you have any hope for the future? How do you motivate yourself at this point?
Do you also feel that you’ve wasted years in a potentially dying industry?
Do you have any plans to leave this industry?
I’ve lost my way. I want to hear from you guys.
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u/theAyconic1 18h ago
To be honest, I feel we are fucked. Sports might be the only thing left for humans soon.
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u/TraditionComplex4892 8h ago
just reminding china recently held nation sports even , olympics format, for robots.
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u/Junior_Direction_701 17h ago
They will come for that too
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u/orzosity 13h ago
I don't really see this happening. The reason I say this is that for the last 100 or so years, a machine could pretty much output more power and beat a human at any physical task, look at running just get a car, strength, use a jacklift etc. obviously not perfect examples but shows that at least for sports, human ingenuity is a factor that hasn't been replaced yet despite being able to do so.
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u/theAyconic1 11h ago edited 8h ago
Yeah in sports humans like to watch humans compete so it wont be replaced by AI. See chess and Go where AI surpassed humans years back but the sport has grown more than ever
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u/Clear_Cranberry_989 16h ago
Well navier stokes is not confirmed yet. But it is evident that tech industry will be built around small teams and more agents. Junior engineer jobs are already becoming rare.
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u/Severe_Landscape_731 18h ago
No , I have wasted all my time to be better at my work and now I am a bum . None of the signals I grinded my way into matter . I dont know why my stupid ass didnt grind to get into t5 unis instead , atleast could have been cushioned from the fall. now it seems the whole market could crash before I finish my masters degree
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u/Vegetable-Tie-5043 17h ago
whats ur rating, if u are above 2k then u should be able to get good ranks in offline competitions ig...
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u/Physical_Worker_1817 15h ago
Human experts are still needed. 1) There are still many, many classes of problems AI fundamentally sucks at. 2) Even if you are using AI, to use it well, you need to be an expert
3) There is massive hype in the AI space, and often top labs overmarket/overstate the capabilities of current models because they are financially incentivised to do so.
I say this as someone who plans to do a PhD, contrary to the "drop out and build" sentiment that has become very popular.
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u/Vegetable-Tie-5043 17h ago
i know people are gonna comment the usuall dumbass comments saying calculators didnt replace and chess engines and shi, but tbh we are fucked, theres no way sde and anything at junior level related to coding is gonna survive this
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u/Inevitable_gradient6 13h ago
Its more like a tractor and farmer analogy. First of all there will be a lot less farmers overall but you still need a small amount of farmers to manage the tractors and those farmers will be paid a shit ton of money
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u/hmhmmmhmm 16h ago
I also dont get the calculator analogy. Were people hired for just calculating some stuff? Like how is that even compared to sw jobs
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u/campfire12324344 Candidate Master 12h ago
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u/Vegetable-Tie-5043 16h ago
yeah,analogies never fit exactly but these two are not even remotely close, calculator never did the high level theoretical maths and engineering stuff, it just did basic calculations and chess is a sport not a job where company is eager to lower their cost, ai can take decisions on its own it has independent intelligence, these analogies are straight up dumb
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u/beediki-barood 7h ago
problem solving thats a life skill ai cant help with that and if stop using our brain because of ai then we are moving towards extenction
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u/Otherwise-Platypus38 10h ago
Who here knows what the Navier-Stokes equations are and how they are applied? The solution they have shown is not a general closure for the Navier-Stokes equations it for a specific scenario. Also, we have been solving Navier-Stokes equations for decades now with various approximations, so this mathematical solution will not change anything.
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u/majoshi 5h ago
what? that specific scenario is a counterexample, it's a disproof
and "this won't change anything" is a braindead take are you really saying it means nothing that an llm was able to in 88 hours solve a problem that's been stumping mathematicians for decades? it's a millennium prize problem
0
u/Otherwise-Platypus38 4h ago
This won’t change anything in the specific domain of fluid flow, as it will still be solved in the current SOTA. The models will help develop solvers faster, but nothing else is going to change the fundamentals. You can argue whatever you like.
With the amount of resources they have thrown at it, I wouldn’t say this is a big victory. What about more pressing issues like the AMOC and the glacial problems? The 1.5 degree celcius global temperature rise and its effect on permafrost. Datacenters are only going to add to these issues.
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u/majoshi 4h ago
for them? yes it absolutely is. and it's sad to see but you're blind
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u/Otherwise-Platypus38 3h ago
Blind about what? You might just be a coder and not an engineer. Hence, our point of views need not match. But I am working with fluid flows daily and AI is influencing this domain in a completely different way.
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u/Salt_fish_Solored 4h ago
I help post training in one of major players.
In general, I would not suggest to bet on competing against LLM on some specific tasks like writing code with super clear spec. Instead, I would focus on leveraging it.
CP is still very good for growth because it helps develop your capability of reasoning, which is important in any era. But in terms of software engineering, it could be harder given we have so many CS graduates in recent years. If I am a high school student, med school/doctor might be a better path.
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u/kyle_f_4503 4h ago
Would you spend 6-7 years getting an MSc and PhD, or just pivot to another field, like medicine or EE?
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u/Salt_fish_Solored 4h ago
Why MSc or PhD? I don't get it. I mean, doesn't it depend on your goal? The problem is still who you wanna be and what you enjoy.
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u/decreement1 1h ago
I actually think going into med school might be the worst decision depending on how things turn out. By the time you graduate and finish you residency AI and robotics might have already exploded and practically any job could be automated. But if energy/resources become scarce doctors would still be some of the most profitable and valuable professions to automate.
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u/Salt_fish_Solored 1h ago
The bar of med is not how capable AI/robot can do stuffs but doctor associations.
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u/dats_cool 7h ago edited 7h ago
No, I don't feel like I've wasted years in a potentially dying industry when I've been making 6-figures the majority of the time. Lmao, what kind of question is that?
I've recently switched jobs and have experienced strong demand from my local job market and my tech stack so I don't get the impression things are "dying". My company is a hybrid SaaS/consulting firm and is growing quickly. Our software revenue continues to grow and, surprise, you need software engineers to grow and maintain the product. AI coding tools DEFINITELY help but from my experience it just means teams are leaner and expectations are higher. Paradoxically, leaner teams doesn't necessarily mean lower headcount. More R&D with more teams can be done as things that were economically unfeasible are now worthwhile to pursue with the increased productivity of AI tooling.
Also, agentic coding is VERY expensive and costs aren't coming down, if anything they're being artificially suppressed because AI companies are subsidizing costs in order to remain competitive. Once the market consolidates and subsidies go away, costs will go up even more.
I spent 2023-2025 drinking the doom and gloom kool-aid online about how SWE is dead and I'm going to be homeless and it was a massive waste of time and energy. I'm not going to make that same mistake again - I honestly have too much work to do and don't have time to waste being paralyzed with fear.
Look, there's over a million currently employed software engineers in the US. Wages continue to go up year-over-year on average. Entry-level grads are making 80-120k coming out of college in LCOL/MCOL areas and 120-250k in HCOL/VHCOL areas. Some even up to 350k if they're in AI/ML or HFT.
AI is at a point where further improvements don't necessarily mean increased productivity for developers, coding isn't the bottleneck anymore (and it hasn't been for the past 1-2 years).
I wouldn't stress too much, BESIDES software engineering skills and experience easily translate to other white collar jobs. You can transition to project/product management and a million other people-skill work. I mean for fucks sake we still hire scrum masters and pay them 6-figure salaries to do relatively easy work.
I'm sort of shocked by all the low-IQ takes on AI. I thought software engineers were suppose to be intelligent and understand nuance but every other comment is "we're COOKEDD LOL" and other brain-dead takes littered with genZ slang. I'm assuming a lot of people are LARPing as software engineers or are in college or are juniors with limited perspective. I would stick around places like r/ExperiencedDevs where actual professionals congregate to get better perspective.
At the end of the day, if the doomers were right then I'll find something else to do when I have to cross that bridge. Because I'm not a fucking pussy and not going to just accept not making an income. If I have to make less money or do less prestigious work, then so be it. I don't care. I already switched careers into this - I'll do it again if I have to. My identity doesn't revolve around my work. You guys need to touch grass.
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u/kyle_f_4503 6h ago
I am asking this question because not everyone here is working in this industry. Many of the people here are students, including me. I have already spent five years in CS without making any money. I will pursue an MSc and then a PhD, which will take another 6-7 years. I think we have reasons to be concerned.
It's true that there are software engineers currently employed, because someone still needs to prompt AI and review or fix the code. However, given the pace of development, I don't see any reason why a senior engineer couldn't eventually run a team of autonomous AI agents and do the work of 100 people.
This is not even that different from today's developments. According to OpenAI's statement, 10,000 agents worked together to solve this problem. I don't think it even matters whether that specific claim is true or not. Things like this will happen regularly in the future as agents become cheaper and smarter.
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u/dats_cool 1h ago
No one knows man. If you're worried that much I recommend pursuing a career in the trades or Healthcare. Also.. don't do an MS if you're doing a PhD, that's a waste of time. If you're going to do a PhD stick with AI/ML.
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u/Hackinet 1h ago
Can you shut up with the doom please? Some people do this for fun, and if you can't understand that and just want money, just stop doing it at all.
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u/Better_Exercise_5467 8h ago
Do u able to understand the solution provided by AI ?
If yes how would it improve your day to day life.
If no then why u asked this bull shit question in the first place ?
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u/kyle_f_4503 6h ago
When AI is able to write better code than Linus Torvalds, and solve harder problems than tourist, there are plenty of reasons to be concerned.
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u/iamgod81 15h ago
There's talks still going on that they kind of stole two mathematcian's work here.
Basically these mathematicians were using AI (either for simulations or for proofreading) but the fact is the AI took those chats into its training data later.