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Caltech Mathathon – first hackathon ever devoted to research level mathematics

mathathonchallenge.com

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Re: Caltech Mathathon – first hackathon ever devoted to research level mathematics

#61

Post by queuebert »

brian-bfz wrote: post #42

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

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.

Re: Caltech Mathathon – first hackathon ever devoted to research level mathematics

#62

Post by ktallett »

queuebert wrote: post #61
brian-bfz wrote: post #42

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

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 biolo…

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.

Re: Caltech Mathathon – first hackathon ever devoted to research level mathematics

#63

Post by suriyaG »

queuebert wrote: post #61
brian-bfz wrote: post #42

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

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 biolo…

> you will likely put mathematicians out of jobs.

why is that a concern in this context? would you have asked the same about steam engines and horses?

this is a really cool concept, organized very well. and that is very commendable.

Re: Caltech Mathathon – first hackathon ever devoted to research level mathematics

#64

Post by a2ff6eeb0 »

ktallett wrote: post #62
queuebert wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 biolo…

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.

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.

Re: Caltech Mathathon – first hackathon ever devoted to research level mathematics

#65

Post by lovasoa »

suriyaG wrote: post #63
queuebert wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 biolo…

> you will likely put mathematicians out of jobs. why is that a concern in this context? would you have asked the same about steam engines and horses? this is a really cool concept, organized very well. and that is very commendable.

steam engines solved a problem people had

Re: Caltech Mathathon – first hackathon ever devoted to research level mathematics

#66

Post by mattmcal »

a2ff6eeb0 wrote: post #64
ktallett wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 mathematic…

Well, for one, most math proofs don't have any practical applications, so a proof that no one reads is basically a digital paperweight. You might as well suggest AI write novels for other AI to read.

Re: Caltech Mathathon – first hackathon ever devoted to research level mathematics

#67

Post by brian-bfz »

queuebert wrote: post #61
brian-bfz wrote: post #42

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

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 biolo…

I don't think AI will solve more math problems in a world with Mathathon than the counterfactual by EOY. People will use AI in math anyways. What matters is: can we encourage them to do so transparently and with full understanding of their results? Can we change the incentives in academia to reward problem selection and verification over proof generation?

Re: Caltech Mathathon – first hackathon ever devoted to research level mathematics

#68

Post by tim-kt »

lovasoa wrote: post #65
suriyaG wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you will likely put mathematicians out of jobs. why is that a concern in this context? would you have asked the same about steam engines and horses? this is a really cool concept, organized very well. and that is very commendable.

steam engines solved a problem people had

If mathematicians aren't solving problems people are having (which your comment seems to imply), then putting them out of their job with AI is not a bad thing. Of course mathematicians are solving problems, just in a very different way than other professions.

Re: Caltech Mathathon – first hackathon ever devoted to research level mathematics

#69

Post by [deleted] »

a2ff6eeb0 wrote: post #64
ktallett wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 mathematic…

[deleted]

Re: Caltech Mathathon – first hackathon ever devoted to research level mathematics

#70

Post by a2ff6eeb0 »

mattmcal wrote: post #66
a2ff6eeb0 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mathematic…

Well, for one, most math proofs don't have any practical applications, so a proof that no one reads is basically a digital paperweight. You might as well suggest AI write novels for other AI to read.

The hope is that some of them end up being useful; otherwise, nobody would be funding math departments. Mathematics typically anticipates and enables new physics and chemistry.

If people are just doing math to kill time, I don't get why anyone would bother with AI. Do people really enjoy picking through a million lines of generated Lean code, if it's not for any practical use?

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