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Most research mathematicians are employed as academics, and it's hard to see universities replacing teaching staff with AI even if that were possible. IMO givi

Most research mathematicians are employed as academics, and it's hard to see universities replacing teaching staff with AI even if that were possible. IMO giving a hypothetical AlphaMath to mathematicians, the same way Google gave AlphaFold to research chemists/biologists, would have resulted in far better PR, and the profit opportunity of attempting to replace the jobs of either research group is minimal. It's downright bizarre the way companies like Anthropic (primarily), and to a lesser extent OpenAI and anyone else, are themselves pushing the narrative of this tech may kill you, will take all your jobs, etc. That may all happen, unfortunately, but being aware of that possibility you'd think these companies would be a bit more mindful of their messaging and behavior, not just go out with a scorched earth approach of "well, they are going to hate us anyway".

famouswaffles 4d ago
>Most research mathematicians are employed as academics, and it's hard to see universities replacing teaching staff with AI even if that were possible. If universities come to only need research mathematicians for teaching ability, then it would still gut the profession. You would presumably need far fewer of them for their research ability, and hopefully hire more people who can actually teach. It's strange that you don't see that as a threat to the profession. Lots of research mathematicians would lose their jobs even in this scenario. >IMO giving a hypothetical AlphaMath to mathematicians, the same way Google gave AlphaFold to research chemists/biologists, would have resulted in far better PR GPT-N isn't AlphaFold. I'm telling you AlphaFold is a bad analogy! AlphaFold has superhuman capabilities at one specialized subproblem - protein-structure prediction - embedded in a much larger biology/drug discovery pipeline. It doesn't replace the biologist or drug researcher, it just gives them a better instrument, and if you're not in the relevant professions it's essentially useless to you. GPT-N is general purpose intelligence machine that can increasingly do chunks of work you would otherwise employ the mathematician or software developer to do. Shanmu Jin is a perfect demonstration. A neurosurgery resident, not a research mathematician, who encountered the Crouzeix conjecture through his transcranial ultrasound research and used GPT-5.6 Sol to solve it (20+ year old longstanding problem). In the AlphaFold story, the biologist gets a powerful new tool. In the Jin story, someone who isn't a mathematician can obtain research level mathematics and incorporate it into their research/code/business whatever without talking to a single human. You're asking why they don't market GPT as "AlphaFold for Mathematicians". They don't because it's not. >It's downright bizarre the way companies like Anthropic (primarily), and to a lesser extent OpenAI and anyone else, are themselves pushing the narrative of this tech may kill you, will take all your jobs, etc. It's not that bizarre. It only seems strange if you think it's all a facade, "marketing" or whatever nonsense HN is convinced of. These are people who believe very strongly in what they are doing and in the potential of it. For these people, what you are asking them to do is actually incredibly slimy. And it might win some brownie points, but not for long.
- HarHarVeryFunny 4d ago
  > You would presumably need far fewer of them for their research ability, and hopefully hire more people who can actually teach I suppose you are suggesting that research mathematicians are either over-qualified mathematically and/or under-qualified in ability to teach, but it seems pretty clear that universities prefer to hire domain experts whose reputations and long publication lists attract students and raise the perceived academic standards of the school. Your "scenario" of much math research soon being done by AI (supervised and paid for by who, one might wonder), while universities hire people chosen for their teaching skills not academic reputation, seems a bit of a stretch ... > You're asking why they don't market GPT as "AlphaFold for Mathematicians". They don't because it's not. No, I am not asking that, nor asking anything for that matter. I was pointing out that giving a free research tool to mathematicians would likely be better received, and receive better press, than doing something that most top-tier mathematicians are opposed to. My hypothetical "AlphaMath" certainly could just be free GPT-N access for academics/researchers (as they are also doing to some extent), or it could indeed be a custom system that OpenAI built as a gift to the math community. As far as the AI companies acting in slimy fashion goes, the most slimy behavior of all is to strongly believe you are doing something that will kill people and cause massive societal disruption ... and still keep doing it.
  - famouswaffles 4d ago
    >I suppose you are suggesting that research mathematicians are either over-qualified mathematically and/or under-qualified in ability to teach, but it seems pretty clear that universities prefer to hire domain experts whose reputations and long publication lists attract students and raise the perceived academic standards of the school. I'm saying there's little correlation in how brilliant a researcher you are and your teaching abilities. Yes universities optimize for the former. That's not necessarily a good thing for students even if it increases the prestige for the university. If there's some future where research and teaching are decoupled, I don't expect things to remain the same, but who knows I guess. >I was pointing out that giving a free research tool to mathematicians would likely be better received, and receive better press, than doing something that most top-tier mathematicians are opposed to. At least currently, it's not possible for this to be a free tool. Both OpenAI and Anthropic have discounts for Universities/Education for such use cases as far as I'm aware. >As far as the AI companies acting in slimy fashion goes, the most slimy behavior of all is to strongly believe you are doing something that will kill people and cause massive societal disruption ... and still keep doing it. This is pretty bad, but I wouldn't call it slimy. And it's no longer up to any one person or company anymore.

famouswaffles 4d ago

>Most research mathematicians are employed as academics, and it's hard to see universities replacing teaching staff with AI even if that were possible. If universities come to only need research mathematicians for teaching ability, then it would still gut the profession. You would presumably need far fewer of them for their research ability, and hopefully hire more people who can actually teach. It's strange that you don't see that as a threat to the profession. Lots of research mathematicians would lose their jobs even in this scenario. >IMO giving a hypothetical AlphaMath to mathematicians, the same way Google gave AlphaFold to research chemists/biologists, would have resulted in far better PR GPT-N isn't AlphaFold. I'm telling you AlphaFold is a bad analogy! AlphaFold has superhuman capabilities at one specialized subproblem - protein-structure prediction - embedded in a much larger biology/drug discovery pipeline. It doesn't replace the biologist or drug researcher, it just gives them a better instrument, and if you're not in the relevant professions it's essentially useless to you. GPT-N is general purpose intelligence machine that can increasingly do chunks of work you would otherwise employ the mathematician or software developer to do. Shanmu Jin is a perfect demonstration. A neurosurgery resident, not a research mathematician, who encountered the Crouzeix conjecture through his transcranial ultrasound research and used GPT-5.6 Sol to solve it (20+ year old longstanding problem). In the AlphaFold story, the biologist gets a powerful new tool. In the Jin story, someone who isn't a mathematician can obtain research level mathematics and incorporate it into their research/code/business whatever without talking to a single human. You're asking why they don't market GPT as "AlphaFold for Mathematicians". They don't because it's not. >It's downright bizarre the way companies like Anthropic (primarily), and to a lesser extent OpenAI and anyone else, are themselves pushing the narrative of this tech may kill you, will take all your jobs, etc. It's not that bizarre. It only seems strange if you think it's all a facade, "marketing" or whatever nonsense HN is convinced of. These are people who believe very strongly in what they are doing and in the potential of it. For these people, what you are asking them to do is actually incredibly slimy. And it might win some brownie points, but not for long.

HarHarVeryFunny 4d ago
> You would presumably need far fewer of them for their research ability, and hopefully hire more people who can actually teach I suppose you are suggesting that research mathematicians are either over-qualified mathematically and/or under-qualified in ability to teach, but it seems pretty clear that universities prefer to hire domain experts whose reputations and long publication lists attract students and raise the perceived academic standards of the school. Your "scenario" of much math research soon being done by AI (supervised and paid for by who, one might wonder), while universities hire people chosen for their teaching skills not academic reputation, seems a bit of a stretch ... > You're asking why they don't market GPT as "AlphaFold for Mathematicians". They don't because it's not. No, I am not asking that, nor asking anything for that matter. I was pointing out that giving a free research tool to mathematicians would likely be better received, and receive better press, than doing something that most top-tier mathematicians are opposed to. My hypothetical "AlphaMath" certainly could just be free GPT-N access for academics/researchers (as they are also doing to some extent), or it could indeed be a custom system that OpenAI built as a gift to the math community. As far as the AI companies acting in slimy fashion goes, the most slimy behavior of all is to strongly believe you are doing something that will kill people and cause massive societal disruption ... and still keep doing it.
- famouswaffles 4d ago
  >I suppose you are suggesting that research mathematicians are either over-qualified mathematically and/or under-qualified in ability to teach, but it seems pretty clear that universities prefer to hire domain experts whose reputations and long publication lists attract students and raise the perceived academic standards of the school. I'm saying there's little correlation in how brilliant a researcher you are and your teaching abilities. Yes universities optimize for the former. That's not necessarily a good thing for students even if it increases the prestige for the university. If there's some future where research and teaching are decoupled, I don't expect things to remain the same, but who knows I guess. >I was pointing out that giving a free research tool to mathematicians would likely be better received, and receive better press, than doing something that most top-tier mathematicians are opposed to. At least currently, it's not possible for this to be a free tool. Both OpenAI and Anthropic have discounts for Universities/Education for such use cases as far as I'm aware. >As far as the AI companies acting in slimy fashion goes, the most slimy behavior of all is to strongly believe you are doing something that will kill people and cause massive societal disruption ... and still keep doing it. This is pretty bad, but I wouldn't call it slimy. And it's no longer up to any one person or company anymore.