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Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

science.org

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Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#21

Post by freakynit »

""" However, the declaration argues math is more than a machine for producing correct answers. The discipline, its authors believe, is a deeply human endeavor built on creativity, understanding, collaboration, and the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Those values often clash with the incentives driving AI development. “The tech industry proceeds in accordance with commercial logic, which is antithetical to the values of mathematics,” declaration co-author Michael Harris of Columbia University told The New York Times. """

I mean, what field doesn't? Everyone works to make money.

Slightly unrelated, but, their website "https://leidendeclaration.ai/" itself gives an eerie feeling of being built by Sonnet. That color scheme and the layout is what Sonnet chooses by default most of the times.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#22

Post by azan_ »

bandrami wrote: post #8

My vague prediction right now is that in five years LLMs will be heavily used by universities in grant-funded math research but nobody else will be able to afford it, much like supercomputer clusters 25 years ago.

Well, if progress in LLMs will steadily continue over next 5 years, then models will be so powerful that there will be no longer place for (most of) human researchers in math (remember that 5 years ago there was no chatgpt!). But I think it's more likely that progress will stall and then open models will catch up to frontier models and almost everyone will be able to afford them.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#23

Post by bossyTeacher »

fooker wrote: post #6

I'm curious about whether we will start discovering new maths in the next few years that provide insight into unsolved CS or Physics problems!

For all you know, some of this has already happened but kept secret for national security reasons

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#24

Post by Spacecosmonaut »

Accelerationists may argue that the eroding of proper attribution and proof verification by humans is a meaningless short term struggle of a dying field.

Mathematics seems to be entering an era where human + machine maximizes performance, much like chess in the 1990s. However, imagine a future where even talented mathematicians are nothing but noise in the machine (as is the case in chess now). A future where AI generates and verifies proofs without humans in the loop. Where the mathematics may be beyond human comprehension.

In that future, does it matter that early career mathematicians are inhibited by these developments? Perhaps not. Programming faces the same issue. As AI crawls up the competence ladder, does it matter that fewer people have opportunities to develop the skillset of a senior engineer? Perhaps not.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#25

Post by psyklic »

silveraxe93 wrote: post #5

> However, the declaration argues math is more than a machine for producing correct answers. There might be more to maths than that, but that is definitely the most important part. I love science funding. But not because it's a jobs program for nerds.

The most important part of math is advancing human understanding. A correct answer by itself is not as important as understanding why it is correct.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#26

Post by dwroberts »

silveraxe93 wrote: post #5

> However, the declaration argues math is more than a machine for producing correct answers. There might be more to maths than that, but that is definitely the most important part. I love science funding. But not because it's a jobs program for nerds.

Probably one of the funniest things to read on a site like this, when you consider that eg. Boolean algebra was entirely abstract and had little practical purpose for almost 100 years until Shannon picked it up for use in circuits

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#29

Post by ragebol »

psyklic wrote: post #25
silveraxe93 wrote: post #5

> However, the declaration argues math is more than a machine for producing correct answers. There might be more to maths than that, but that is definitely the most important part. I love science funding. But not because it's a jobs program for nerds.

The most important part of math is advancing human understanding. A correct answer by itself is not as important as understanding why it is correct.

"What is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything"

42

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#30

Post by NotOscarWilde »

silveraxe93 wrote: post #15
19f191ty wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not the most important part. It can be argued that most important part is asking the right questions

Assume someone solves P=NP Do you think Stephen Cook and Leonid Levin deserve more credit than whoever solved it?

That's a bit too simplistic -- if there is a small group that really pushes things forward in a big way, then maybe not, but if this result builds upon decades of prior work, then Cook and Levin might be equally or even slightly more famous than the solver group after the dust settles.

But it is a moot point anyway. Cook and Levin are very well known already in TCS, and credit is not directly enumerable like money, so "more than a lot of credit" doesn't make too much sense.

For this problem in particular, asking the right kind of question was really important for the field and led to a lot of discoveries even before it will be answered.

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