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glimshe 16 hours ago

Despite loving Mathematics and having considered being a Mathematician myself, that wasn't a very robust defense. Also, even though I'm a big Terence Tao fan, I'm not sure he has sorted that out this defense in full himself.

This post which he forwarded was quite poor in my opinion. Confusing, all over the place with AI criticisms and promotion of the AI hazing being done by mathematicians.

X thousand mathematicians who want to protect their livelihoods signed a bunch of letters against AI. Duh. We've seen similar movements from every profession that has been displaced ever.

Terence Tao uses AI and has made a few good points on how to use it. But defensiveness leaks into almost every defense of the role of humans in Mathematics that I've read, even his own at times.

To be clear, I actually believe that Mathematicians aren't going away, but I dont have enough knowledge about the life of a professional mathematician to articulate a path forward.

This "path forward" is what I'd like to see. We need a top mathematician with enough intellectual honesty (Terence Tao qualifies, I think) to start this questioning with "there's actually no role for human Mathematicians" as one of the options on the table and go from there.

airstrike 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Though your points above may all be valid, you're asking us to just accept your view that the parent's wasn't a very robust defense.

Can you provide an explanation for why their claim that (1) and (2) are the hardest parts is false?

Or perhaps provide an alternative definition of Mathematics that is more explanatory than the one they've provided?

robotpepi 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For me, mathematicians seem to be still having an inner discussion rather a making these essays for the more general public. In any case, I think that statements of the type "there's actually no role for human Mathematicians" are completely non-serious, so it'd sad that the discussion concentrates on that.

glimshe 14 hours ago | parent [-]

I agree, but it's still something we shouldn't eliminate a priori. I think Mathematics as a profession will be greatly enhanced by AI, but I can't prove that.

xanderlewis 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There’s a simple point to be made: if no one in the world understands an AI proof, what’s the point?

scared_together 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Maybe another AI could use the proof.

SJC_Hacker 3 hours ago | parent [-]

How would we know it was correct?

If you feed an AI nonsense in its training data, it will generate nonsense