Because the math isn't solely about the proof being correct. You don't need to take my word for it, here's one of the most famous living mathematicians' take on it: https://teorth.github.io/tao-web/slides/age-of-ai-icm-2026.p...

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jsenn 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

I don’t see Tao suggesting what you have suggested there. Instead he suggests that humans responsibly disclose AI use, and that mathematicians develop a set of norms to deal with an overabundance of AI generated results. For example, he suggests that authors should be able to discuss their results in detail to demonstrate understanding before publication.

	▲	c7b 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I agree with your reading of the presentation and I mostly agree with the presentation - but I believe the recommendations should go a bit further than they do there.

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somenameforme 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I can't help but wonder about the human motivation there though. For instance as it became increasingly clear that LLMs were capable (and becoming ever more capable) of competently solving meaningfully complex software development tasks, suddenly then there came to be a lot of talk of 'prompt engineering' as a skill. The chronology doesn't make a ton of sense unless you consider that the main motivation may have been simply looking for a way to keep software engineers in the loop.

Pure math is relatively outside my domain, so I find it difficult to grok the exact relevance of the various published discoveries beyond that they are not insignificant, and LLM competence is expanding quite steadily across the field. If this trend continues to the point of LLMs being able to competently expand pure math, it seems somewhat predictable to expect there to be a number of people aiming to find ways to try to keep human mathematicians in the loop.

I've no idea what I think about this one way or the other, beyond that it's certainly a phenomena and one that's going to drive motivated reasoning that may not be entirely sound.

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c7b 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

I think those concerned about ensuring a place for human mathematicians usually go in different directions than my suggestion, at least those I've seen so far. Like this post that was recently featured on HN: https://kirwinhampshire.substack.com/p/the-dark-night-of-mat...

My perspective is more like a FOSS philosophy for math. Even if a closed version has the same immediate effect, it's just better for everyone if everyone can look under the hood and tinker with it.

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throwaway0123_5 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> suddenly then there came to be a lot of talk of 'prompt engineering' as a skill.

I would've thought pretty much the exact opposite. "Prompt engineering" was somewhat important in 2023/2024 when the models were much weaker, it doesn't seem at all necessary anymore (unless just "clearly stating your requirements" counts as prompt engineering). Most of the discussion I've seen seems consistent with this?

	▲	somenameforme 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The reason it's a meme right now is because there were a lot of people taking it seriously even when it was completely obvious nonsense. And one can argue it always was. There was some good advice that was mostly self evident, like having the most relevant instructions near the end of your context, but there was never a time when a 'prompt engineer' would produce dramatically better output than a random guy just clearly stating what he wants.