8 ms·
>Maybe mathematics just becomes a little more like other fields--relying on labs with lots of money for compute, digging through a corpus of AI-generated proofs
by num42 5d ago
>Maybe mathematics just becomes a little more like other fields--relying on labs with lots of money for compute, digging through a corpus of AI-generated proofs, etc.
Dr. Tao said the same thing. Somehow, this letter came through. He wants to conduct Math competitions where participants who don’t have formal credentials can contribute to mathematical research through AI.
Title: Terence Tao - SAIR Competitions and the Future of Experimental Mathematics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB9YOi3lb7w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB9YOi3lb7w
and this:
Daniel Litt - Working with LLMs to do high quality math
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wL8NlhxXcU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wL8NlhxXcU
- cubefox 5d ago> Dr. Tao said the same thing. Apparently he has since changed his mind.
- ksoped 5d agoDid he say so somewhere? I don't think these ideas are contradictory. It's just an pro AI tooling but anti-slop stance.
- cubefox 5d agoWhere is the difference?
- SpicyLemonZest 5d agoHe sees value in mathematicians using AI to carefully study mathematics, develop an understanding of both old and new things, and help others understand the new things. He doesn't see value in scrolling through unsolved problems asking an AI to please solve them. In his view, this is a fundamental confusion about what mathematical research is for. Knocking down unsolved problems without developing the community's understanding of them is like prompting Claude to go through a Jira board, write code for all the open tickets, and then close them without merging or deploying the code.
- bluecheese452 5d agoIsn’t it more like it merges the code without a dev reviewing or understanding it?
- SpicyLemonZest 5d agoNo. Merged code can perform actions with effects on the world, even if a human being never saw it. Constructing a giant Lean formalization that nobody understands simply doesn't do anything.
- dbmikus 5d agoPretty close, but IMO not quite. A math proof in and of itself is useless unless either: (A) it furthers human knowledge (B) it gets used in applied sciences, engineering, etc. If you merge and deploy code, you have released a tool that can be used. If you ship a gibberish math proof, it's not useful unless someone else can understand and deploy it to some other means. Now, it's possible AI could understand and make use of the math proofs, even if we can't, which refutes some of my hair splitting :)
- coderenegade 5d agoNot necessarily. That's the best case scenario, but proofs can be intrinsically useful in and of themselves. It's just that for problems of that nature, speculative work is often done ahead of time, e.g. the body of work that already exists assuming the Riemann hypothesis is true.
- dbmikus 4d agoThat's a good point!
- glitchc 5d ago> He doesn't see value in scrolling through unsolved problems asking an AI to please solve them. Yet that's exactly how the field works. A new grad student is tasked with finding a suitably difficult problem from a list of unsolved problems. The sweet spot is obscure, so that fewer people are working on it, but not too obscure that no one knows about it. It works the same way in theoretical physics and theoretical Comp Sci, and I speak from insider knowledge. The rosy view of mathematicians in the media is largely a product of marketing.
- jrecursive 5d agotaste
- genxy 5d ago"I believe I did, Bob" lives rent free, every time someone tells another person to fuck themselves using technology. Thank You!
- jrecursive 5d agolmao, thank you, i think
- genxy 5d agoPlease consider making more comics. You have it.
- darkstarsys 5d agoYes. I find it really interesting to consider what the machines do and will think of as intrinsically interesting to them. Will they develop their own theories of beauty, mathematical and otherwise?
- 318274 5d agoSo he got exuberant because he is funded by SAIR and the "AI for math" fund. And embarrassingly they used him for a "coal miners should learn math" moment that just benefits the AI industry. He has severely reversed course in the past week. Without concrete propositions it remains to be seen how much of the new resistance is for show.
- SavageNoble 5d agoI have zero formal math training beyond my Grade 12 Pre-Calculus class. Yet with an LLM I have recently devised an architecture with incredible math potential. Math is a language like any other, and without LLM's I never would have developed the techniques that I have. AI is a tool. It speaks languages I don't (Math, Science, Code). I would love to participate in a Math competition without a hint of any formal advanced math training because my experience so far tells me I will do well.
- breezybottom 5d agoHow could you possibly know if it has potential or not? Sounds like AI psychosis setting in.
- SavageNoble 5d agoBecause every test I run with it is telling me so? The great thing about math is it can be externally validated.
- BlackFingolfin 5d agoWho makes the tests? Who runs the tests? And who evaluates that the tests have meaning? As long as it is the AI, or you (with your self-admitted limited experience), how can you be sure it is meaningful?
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 5d agoYeah, but you're missing a gut intuition if something is off. I wrote a fancy polygon decomposition algorithm in university (pre-AI) which my professor didn't seem very impressed by because it was missing some sort of mathematical rigor. Yet everything I threw at it worked! Even he couldn't find a counter example. It took a while for me to find some failing cases but it turned out they did exist. But hey, maybe all I was missing is an AI-written lean proof.
- bobanrocky 5d ago‘Incredible math potential’ .. Yeah right, your AI said so ?!
- throw567643u8 5d ago>Dr. Tao Professor Tao.