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Hey guys, I'm one of the organizers. AMA. - We are a team of undergrads at Caltech. We don't represent Caltech, any Caltech departments, or any of our sponsors

Hey guys, I'm one of the organizers. AMA. - We are a team of undergrads at Caltech. We don't represent Caltech, any Caltech departments, or any of our sponsors. - We don't receive monetary compensation. All the funding raised goes toward paying our judges and participants. - Our goal is to promote responsible AI use. You can read more about our commitments here: https://mathathonchallenge.com/faq.html https://mathathonchallenge.com/faq.html

deleted 6d ago
[deleted]
fred123123 9d ago
Hey! Any indication on what area of mathematics theses questions are from?
- brian-bfz 9d ago
  You pick your own problem! You can even formulate your own conjecture and then prove it. Picking an impactful problem is part of our judging criteria.
  - fred123123 9d ago
    That sound cool!, do you have hints on the cash prizes the website said something like 2 M ???
    - jegutman 9d ago
      That’s tokens available I assume for all competitors during the competition.
maypop 9d ago
Is this hackathon only for those with formal math backgrounds? I've seen a few instances of AI assisted advances math and cs this year that were _not_ published by authors with formal backgrounds in those fields (or even institutional affiliation). Which makes me wonder if they would have a place at the event.
- brian-bfz 9d ago
  Yes. To us, solving a problem with AI doesn't matter as much as selecting the right problem and understanding the proof. A participant must have a good mathematical intuition.
  - smcin 9d ago
    How much formal math background is required? Undergrad/graduate/PhD/...? For one person on each team or everyone?
  - wltyn 9d ago
    Does Mech Eng masters count?
queuebert 9d ago
Serious question: Are you sure solving abstract mathematical problems with AI is responsible use? You will likely put mathematicians out of jobs, and I doubt solving the Collatz conjecture is urgent or will save lives. It also robs a future Fields medalist of the pride of doing all by themselves. All things AI seems to assume that more and faster is better, but there is no justification of that assumption. As a biological counterexample, a tree grown quickly will likely not be as healthy or strong as one grown slowly.
- ktallett 9d ago
  I get your point and agree to some extent, but you can't understand the proof without significant background in Maths so it will just allow mathematicians to solve issues faster than not have the opportunity at all.
  - a2ff6eeb0 9d ago
    Why do people need to understand proofs? If Amazon improves package routing with new advances in graph theory, my cat doesn't need to understand it to benefit from better shipments of cat food. Similarly, humans don't need to be involved in scientific advances to benefit. We just need an aligned AI to take over the scientific thought for us. AI is already better than all but the top tier of humans at doing mathematics, it's writing most of the posts on the front page of this website, and it's doing the bulk of programming at many startups. We can't put this genie back in the bottle.
    - maths_math 6d ago
      > humans don't need to be involved in scientific advances to benefit. I agree with you on this point in isolation, but I think it's missing an enormous amount of context. Humans can absolutely benefit from science they weren't involved in and don't understand - I have no idea what a "histimine" is but I benefit from my allergy medication in the springtime. That said, we're already living through a time where, on the whole, measures of intelligence, literacy, critical thinking, etc. are falling (at least in the US). That is a problem, which risks being exacerbated by AI, and the broader point is that we should be figuring out how to use these tools to produce knowledge that benefits humanity while also maintaining incentives for people to use their brains. Going back to my allergies: while I don't understand how my allergy meds work, my life is better, and I'm a better spouse/parent/friend/citizen etc., because I've taken the time to understand how other parts of the scientific and mathematical world that do interest me work. The current AI push to just throw out LLM-generated Lean proofs of everything under the sun to get headlines and pump up their IPO valuations (which this Marathon seems, intentionally or not, to be participating in), doesn't appear to be considering this alignment between what we get from AIs and how we can maintain our incentives to do human science. It seems more like measuring you-know-whats while risking that the message the broader public takes away is that math "has been automated" so what's the point in using your brain anymore?
danielmarkbruce 9d ago
Why not specify 2-3 problems? Won't you have people show up having already spent a bunch of time on their self chosen problem? Which sort of defeats the point of seeing what you can do in a short period of time?
- brian-bfz 9d ago
  Solving a problem is the easy part with AI. Selecting a problem worth solving is half of the challenge. We allow prior work as long as it's labelled. We record chat logs, so it's easy to verify what's prior work. When we evaluate the significance of a result, we focus on the part produced at the event.
  - ajkjk 9d ago
    it seems like a person could cheat by finding an open problem that's AI-solvable ahead of time (by trying many problems), and then pretend to do it for the first time in the competition. You can't verify past chat logs so make sure they didn't already realize it would work. just something to think about
    - brian-bfz 9d ago
      We are giving each team $20k AI credits. I hope they will use it to solve problems beyond the reach of regular AI plans.
      - danielmarkbruce 9d ago
        Ok. This all makes sense I guess. Good going, hope it goes well.
bwfan123 8d ago
In your final report of this experiment, can you also report the following: How many problems were NOT solved by AI in spite of attempts. What is missing in the debate of AI in math is that only the successful cases are reported. To get a balanced picture of the effectiveness of AI, what is also needed are cases where it failed.

deleted 6d ago

[deleted]

fred123123 9d ago

Hey! Any indication on what area of mathematics theses questions are from?

brian-bfz 9d ago
You pick your own problem! You can even formulate your own conjecture and then prove it. Picking an impactful problem is part of our judging criteria.
- fred123123 9d ago
  That sound cool!, do you have hints on the cash prizes the website said something like 2 M ???
  - jegutman 9d ago
    That’s tokens available I assume for all competitors during the competition.

maypop 9d ago

Is this hackathon only for those with formal math backgrounds? I've seen a few instances of AI assisted advances math and cs this year that were _not_ published by authors with formal backgrounds in those fields (or even institutional affiliation). Which makes me wonder if they would have a place at the event.

brian-bfz 9d ago
Yes. To us, solving a problem with AI doesn't matter as much as selecting the right problem and understanding the proof. A participant must have a good mathematical intuition.
- smcin 9d ago
  How much formal math background is required? Undergrad/graduate/PhD/...? For one person on each team or everyone?
- wltyn 9d ago
  Does Mech Eng masters count?

queuebert 9d ago

Serious question: Are you sure solving abstract mathematical problems with AI is responsible use? You will likely put mathematicians out of jobs, and I doubt solving the Collatz conjecture is urgent or will save lives. It also robs a future Fields medalist of the pride of doing all by themselves. All things AI seems to assume that more and faster is better, but there is no justification of that assumption. As a biological counterexample, a tree grown quickly will likely not be as healthy or strong as one grown slowly.

ktallett 9d ago
I get your point and agree to some extent, but you can't understand the proof without significant background in Maths so it will just allow mathematicians to solve issues faster than not have the opportunity at all.
- a2ff6eeb0 9d ago
  Why do people need to understand proofs? If Amazon improves package routing with new advances in graph theory, my cat doesn't need to understand it to benefit from better shipments of cat food. Similarly, humans don't need to be involved in scientific advances to benefit. We just need an aligned AI to take over the scientific thought for us. AI is already better than all but the top tier of humans at doing mathematics, it's writing most of the posts on the front page of this website, and it's doing the bulk of programming at many startups. We can't put this genie back in the bottle.
  - maths_math 6d ago
    > humans don't need to be involved in scientific advances to benefit. I agree with you on this point in isolation, but I think it's missing an enormous amount of context. Humans can absolutely benefit from science they weren't involved in and don't understand - I have no idea what a "histimine" is but I benefit from my allergy medication in the springtime. That said, we're already living through a time where, on the whole, measures of intelligence, literacy, critical thinking, etc. are falling (at least in the US). That is a problem, which risks being exacerbated by AI, and the broader point is that we should be figuring out how to use these tools to produce knowledge that benefits humanity while also maintaining incentives for people to use their brains. Going back to my allergies: while I don't understand how my allergy meds work, my life is better, and I'm a better spouse/parent/friend/citizen etc., because I've taken the time to understand how other parts of the scientific and mathematical world that do interest me work. The current AI push to just throw out LLM-generated Lean proofs of everything under the sun to get headlines and pump up their IPO valuations (which this Marathon seems, intentionally or not, to be participating in), doesn't appear to be considering this alignment between what we get from AIs and how we can maintain our incentives to do human science. It seems more like measuring you-know-whats while risking that the message the broader public takes away is that math "has been automated" so what's the point in using your brain anymore?

danielmarkbruce 9d ago

Why not specify 2-3 problems? Won't you have people show up having already spent a bunch of time on their self chosen problem? Which sort of defeats the point of seeing what you can do in a short period of time?

brian-bfz 9d ago
Solving a problem is the easy part with AI. Selecting a problem worth solving is half of the challenge. We allow prior work as long as it's labelled. We record chat logs, so it's easy to verify what's prior work. When we evaluate the significance of a result, we focus on the part produced at the event.
- ajkjk 9d ago
  it seems like a person could cheat by finding an open problem that's AI-solvable ahead of time (by trying many problems), and then pretend to do it for the first time in the competition. You can't verify past chat logs so make sure they didn't already realize it would work. just something to think about
  - brian-bfz 9d ago
    We are giving each team $20k AI credits. I hope they will use it to solve problems beyond the reach of regular AI plans.
    - danielmarkbruce 9d ago
      Ok. This all makes sense I guess. Good going, hope it goes well.

bwfan123 8d ago

In your final report of this experiment, can you also report the following: How many problems were NOT solved by AI in spite of attempts. What is missing in the debate of AI in math is that only the successful cases are reported. To get a balanced picture of the effectiveness of AI, what is also needed are cases where it failed.