The presentation may be public grieving, but before the day is pass, we'll all be grieving too. Because, sadly, one thing Tao's Math 2.0 is in denial of (or purposefully refuses to confront), is:

> Simply put, if we don't understand the answers we won't know what the next question should be.

It won't matter, because it won't be us who will be asking the next questions anymore. Whether in math or anything else.

And no, domains that require real-world validation against physical ground truth won't save us, because AI gets to have the same inputs as we do (or better, if using specialized hardware), while beating us at reasoning.

And GP's likening this to previous massive economic shifts due to automation isn't really helping in any way, not anymore, because perspective won't feed us when we're hungry, and just as importantly, this one will affect every single field of human activity, so no one has any answers as to what the future will really hold for us.

> It won't matter, because it won't be us who will be asking the next questions anymore. Whether in math or anything else.

That's the frontier labs' preferred narrative while they themselves are still hiring hordes of human "Account Associates", "Android Engineers", and "AI support engineers" instead of automating those jobs as a show of their AI strength. Of course it will be "us" asking the questions, because "AI" are computer programs, and humans build the computers and choose what computational tools to use for any application.

https://openai.com/careers/search/

Your post is emblematic of the current AI hysteria.

This is what it feels like to be disrupted. It's not the end of the world. You consider the evidence, ponder the path forward, and adapt. It's what humans do and their superpower. It doesn't have to be a negative thing, even if it is dislocating.

We don't need to be saved, there is plenty of agency to go around. Just grasp the opportunity and forge ahead. This sort of pessimism is self-defeating. Humanity has dealt with this before and come out on top, this time is no different. AI is being wildly oversold.

Tao is being entirely rational. He maybe has more to lose as anyone, but he's getting down to brass tacks instead of jumping at shadows and imaginary boogeymen.