This sounds a lot to me like people in the 90's complaining that computers were destroying chess. Thirty years later, chess is more popular than it ever was, and chess players are better than they ever have been. I wouldn't be surprised if there are now more chess books now than there ever have been. Furthermore, it turns out that a lot of chess books written before computers were just wrong about a lot of things. It turns out having an oracle for the "right" answer in chess, even without an explanation, used properly, allows humans to develop broader, more accurate insights.

The argument here sounds similar. The fear, as I understand this statement to be saying, is that by being given the correct answer, in the form of a 100-page Lean proof, humans will be robbed of the chance to from insights about the structure of mathematics itself. I don't see any reason that humans can't continue to develop insights as they try to digest the 100-page Lean proof into something more manageable; but with more certainty and fewer false starts.

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senfiaj 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Well, chess is a sport where humans are supposed to compete. But math, programming, science are mostly not, and AI might affect economy, careers, etc.

	▲	sweezyjeezy an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		As a chess fan, 100% this. We have known for the last ~15 years who the best human chess player is, and that he will lose against stockfish on his phone. But chess survives because of the human characters involved, the rivalries and dramas, watching two people trying to overcome each other under insane pressure, and sometimes coming up with something astonishing. In short - it's a sport. There is no equivalent in math.
	▲	NewsaHackO 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I guess part of the problem is that being against being against anything for economic interests doesn't really rally anyone to your cause; everyone has to make a living doing something productive for society, and professions have come and gone all the time due to technological advances. In fact, when one thinks about it, the people that are losing their professions now were major contributors to others losing their form of income. Often people talk about how they can use technological/programming/IT skills to make some secretary or administrative assistant's job obsolete. So most people just don't feel a lot of sympathy when people complain that AI are going to take those people's jobs.
	▲	magoghm 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		That's correct. As far as I know nodody builds any kind of science or technology on top of chess, but mathematics is at the base of most science and technology. It would be horrible if we prevented AI from solving mathematics problems, just because mathematicians want to solve them by themselves the "hard way".

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fantasizr 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

=> If chess.com was worth billions and Daniel Rensch was threatening everyone to do what he says.

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tossandthrow 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I like this approach.

A but like whenever the first sprinter hits a new world record other runners follow along.

Knowing that something is possible tends to strengthen our ability to work with it.

We will potentially see the same with math.

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djierardi 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

But computers have destroyed chess as a "sport". Nobody will sit to watch two chess programs compete, or analyze their tactics. Kinda like how now, anybody can construct a "game" over the weekend or a new song or a slop video. The value of each of these decreases to 0 as the slop overwhelms.

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Bourget 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>Nobody will sit to watch two chess programs compete, or analyze their tactics.

I know nothing about chess yet I dare say that I'd doubt this. Surely chess enthusiasts would be interested in analyzing how a superior chess program came out victorious, no?

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latent-person 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yes you are right, some people do watch chess engines play. TCEC (Top Chess Engine Championship) [1] streams them. Popular chess YouTubers goes over engine games from time to time too.

[1] https://tcec-chess.com/

	▲	throwaway27448 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's not proof of interest so much as proof of commerce. It could easily be a money-laundering mechanism. Mostly nobody cares about professional chess. The number of people who are actually interested in today's game and not the drama are a tiny sliver of that. This is actually great because it means we can train and evaluate both without interference from chess players, possibly even building a stable society.

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7373737373 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

People do: https://tcec-chess.com/

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derac 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

erm actually, chess tournaments rose in popularity and more people watch now than ever

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jaccola 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> I wouldn't be surprised if there are now more chess books now than there ever have been

Well yeah... how would there be fewer??

But the point itself is silly. Few people are putting effort into Maths for the fun of it (and of those that are many derive fun from being the only one who can produce a solution). Chess differs in that it never had any point but the game its self.