| ▲ | esafak 4 hours ago |
| Isn't this sucking the fun out of math? It's not like we're going to get any tangible benefit out of them, so why not let mathematicians keep their jobs? |
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| ▲ | zamadatix 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| The thing about math is we don't usually know what is pure fancy and what is civilization altering until far after the discovery. Once in a while it's a real targeted crack at something practical but most often it's collecting things which seem trial until you use them together and suddenly you have computers running LLMs. If it were really just about funding people who like math to have fun then it's easy to do forever: just don't have them look at the results and keep paying. |
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| ▲ | esafak 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | What is their pay going to be justified by once computers start conjecturing and proving theorems on their own? | | |
| ▲ | srcreigh 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Mathematicians will be the ones who can tell us if the computer theorems are decent or not. Otherwise they’ll be the ones like Erdős who pose the questions in the first place. Either way it will always be humans who decide what matters. AI is speaking our languages, not the other way around. We’re in charge. It’s impossible for us not to be, unless we can train an AI from dolphin data or other natural phenomenon. The AIs intelligence is tuned to us and in 300 years we’ll need new training runs for the update from human zeitgeist language and the 2200 century famous mathematicians. | | |
| ▲ | esafak an hour ago | parent [-] | | > Either way it will always be humans who decide what matters. AI is speaking our languages, not the other way around. We’re in charge. It’s impossible for us not to be, unless we can train an AI from dolphin data or other natural phenomenon. AI companies are accruing power by virtue of its knowledge and ability to do work. If endowed with agency, which seems likely at this rate, it is the AI itself that will be powerful. And we'll be in charge because AI is trained on human language? I can't fathom the logic behind this. |
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| ▲ | ralusek 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This is kind of insane reasoning. It's basically asking "what is their pay going to be justified by once their pay isn't justified?" | | |
| ▲ | esafak 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think you're trying to say their pay won't be justified? You are not being clear. |
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| ▲ | derektank 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Attending department faculty meetings |
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| ▲ | Reubend 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Isn't the pursuit of knowledge alone good enough? |
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| ▲ | piloto_ciego an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| That’s the problem, the coupling of work with the right to survive |
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| ▲ | Legend2440 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The job of a mathematician is to study mathematics, not to create proofs. An automatic proof solver doesn't make mathematicians obsolete any more than the excel sheet made accountants obsolete. |
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| ▲ | esafak 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Conjectures and proofs are the fruit of the understanding. Nobody gets paid to think without producing anything. | | |
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| ▲ | 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| [deleted] |
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| ▲ | yieldcrv 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| or get those bright minds out of academia daycare and back to more actionable needs such as steering agents |
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| ▲ | no_multitudes 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| This will keep happening until we stop people from doing it. |
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