I love how Terrence Tao went from being AI shiller -- being a walking advertisement for openai and anthropic to a Oh nO MaThS iS KilLeD wHaT aBoUT mY JoB in a few months.

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123987182 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

1) This is a guest post.

2) TFA argues golden age, provided LLM infrastructure is independent.

3) Tao just opened a new SAIR AI platform.

4) Tao just opened a journal for papers with Lean proofs.

5) Academics are known to play both sides of the fence.

It is absolutely bewildering how some people miss the finer points.

	▲	muadddib an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Ok Terence

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beng-nl 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[This is a guest post by Francesco Maggi. This blog post was initially written in a different file format and converted using AI. — T.]

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pfdietz 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I wonder if there was a collapse in people applying to math PhD programs.

It would be cool if some prestigious such program revamped itself to be AI-focused, maybe in collaboration with a CS department.

	▲	j2kun 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Was? Grad school applications are once a year and this happened just a few weeks ago

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zzzeek 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

terrence tao didn't even write this post and the conclusion it has is thus:

> Universities, professional societies, funding agencies, and scientific foundations should coordinate the development and governance of competitive LLMs. Scientists will need access to frontier capabilities, transparency about their operation and use of research data, strong confidentiality protections, and the ability to test and reproduce research claims independently.

> The massive computing resources, specialized personnel, data infrastructure, and ongoing investments needed to support this kind of initiative are not within the reach of a single institution, and a huge leadership effort will be necessary to conjure the combination of independent model development, guaranteed access to commercial systems, public computing infrastructure, and open research resources that could do the job.

the post is calling for....an enormous investment in LLM infrastructure.

	▲	knottn 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Thanks for a summary. Based on your summary, I think the parent is directionally correct, at least. All of this seems like panic and attempt to salvage a profession, seeking control and money and other people to do stuff, now! It’s not like this is isolated to university labor. It will kill universities yes, but it will kill a lot of bigger and more important things, likely humanity itself will be killed off. That’s the context.

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bananaflag 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I find it very weird how he didn't foresee the end of math, being so smart. I mean I did and I'm definitely less smart than him.

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fidotron 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Same phenomenon as all the godfathers of AI that were apparently oblivious to the plot of the Terminator franchise until after their paychecks had cleared.

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ramraj07 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The irony is that he’s still very very wrong in my opinion. He’s lamenting the end of math, but it’s not a stretch to think that math is just the beginning. Like the destruction of the buoy before the tsunami actually hits land. His current stance seems to be implicating that the blast radius is only till math or science when it’s just the first domino.

	▲	bananaflag 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Indeed he's definitely not ASI-pilled

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georgemcbay 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> I find it very weird how he didn't foresee the end of math, being so smart. I mean I did and I'm definitely less smart than him.

IMO this is probably not an accurate assessment of Tao in particular at this time.

But in the general case, I think most people have a set of blinders on that will result in a predictable reassessment of AI with the following steps as AI progresses when applied to whatever it is they do:

1) AI is useless and doesn't impact me at all. Look at how bad it is! (Most developers up until late 2025)

2) Ok, now AI is useful but will not replace me. Sucks for the juniors in the field but I am still needed to guide the AI. AI will never be capable of my judgement (or whatever). (Most developers now)

3) Oh shit, I've been replaced in terms of economically valuable utility by AI. (tbd, but likely sooner than is comfortable)

And not everyone will experience #3, there will be a top 1% or so for most fields where #3 remains true for them, but it is likely that for most people #3 comes eventually.

	▲	zeroonetwothree 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It is unlikely anyone would actually have zero utility, if only because of comparative advantage. (Although I think there will still be absolute advantage)