I also do OR-adjacent work, but I've had much less luck using 4o for formulating MIPs. It tends to deliver correct-looking answers with handwavy explanations of the math, but the equations don't work and the reasoning doesn't add up.
It's a strange experience, like taking a math class where the proofs are weird and none of the lessons click for you, and you start feeling stupid, only to learn your professor is an escaped dementia patient and it was gobbledygook to begin with.
I had a similar experience yesterday using o1 to see if a simple path exists through s to t through v using max flow. It gave me a very convincing-looking algorithm that was fundamentally broken. My working solution used some techniques from its failed attempt, but even after repeated hints it failed to figure out a working answer (it stubbornly kept finding s->t flows, rather than realizing v->{s,t} was the key.)
It's also extremely mentally fatiguing to check its reasoning. I almost suspect that RLHF has selected for obfuscating its reasoning, since obviously-wrong answers are easier to detect and penalize than subtly-wrong answers.
Yip. We need research into how long it takes experts to repair faulty answers, vs. generate them on their own.
Benchmarking 10,000 attempts on an IQ test is irrelevant if on most of those attempts the time taken to repair an answer is long than the time to complete the test yourself.
I find its useful to generate examplars in areas you're roughly familiar with, but want to see some elaboration or a refresher. You can stich it all together to get further, but when it comes time to actually build/etc. something -- you need to start from scratch.
The time taken to reporduce what it's provided, now that you understand it, is trivial compared to the time needed to repair its flaws.
It's a strange experience, like taking a math class where the proofs are weird and none of the lessons click for you, and you start feeling stupid, only to learn your professor is an escaped dementia patient and it was gobbledygook to begin with.
I had a similar experience yesterday using o1 to see if a simple path exists through s to t through v using max flow. It gave me a very convincing-looking algorithm that was fundamentally broken. My working solution used some techniques from its failed attempt, but even after repeated hints it failed to figure out a working answer (it stubbornly kept finding s->t flows, rather than realizing v->{s,t} was the key.)
It's also extremely mentally fatiguing to check its reasoning. I almost suspect that RLHF has selected for obfuscating its reasoning, since obviously-wrong answers are easier to detect and penalize than subtly-wrong answers.