Verifying that every step in a (potentially long) proof is sound can of course be much, much harder than verifying that a definition is correct. That's kind of the whole point.

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LeCompteSftware 5 hours ago | parent [-]

That's not what the parent comment meant. They meant checking the Lean-language definitions actually match the mathematical English ones, and that the Lean theorems match the ones in the paper. If that's true then you don't actually need to check the proofs. But you absolutely need to check the definitions, and you can't really do that without sufficient mathematical maturity.

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smallnamespace 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, and the child comment’s point is that formalizing the problem is likely easier than having the LLM verify that each step of a long deduction is correct, which is why Lean might be helpful.

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LeCompteSftware 2 hours ago | parent [-]

But both of you are ignoring the parent comment! Actually you're ignoring the context of the thread.

Originally someone said "I wish I was math smart to know if [this vibe-mathematics proof] worked or not." They did NOT say "I'd like to check but I am too lazy." Suggesting "ask it to formalize it in Lean" is useless if you're not mathematically mature enough to understand the proof, since that means you're not mathematically mature enough to understand how to formalize the problem.

Then "likely easier" is a moot point. A Lean program you're not knowledgeable enough to sanity-check is precisely as useless as a math proof you're not knowledgeable enough to read.

	▲	utopiah an hour ago \| parent [-]
		thanks