Live data from Hacker News

Tao: Open math problems being non-renewably mined by AI

mathstodon.xyz

431–432 of 432 posts

Re: Tao: Open math problems being non-renewably mined by AI

#431
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, many mathematicians have. As Tao points out, merely suggesting new open questions isn't really sufficient. Part of what gives these problems their fame is their notoriety, their difficulty, the fact that many prodigious mathematicians have spent an evening or week or month or several years studying it. It wouldn't be as interesting if it had just been solved by the fifth random mathematician who considered it No…

Mathematics isn't art. It doesn't gain its value in human affairs from being interesting to study. I fail to see why we should cater to that.

I think everyone is conflating a few things:

* (1) Mathematics, the true things known by humans

* Mathematics, the things that are true

* (3) Mathematics, the institution which gets funding and manages resources to expand and maintain 1

AI agents can discover more true things, but that doesn't necessarily expand 1 and it might undermine 3

If someone is worried about 3 and you're talking about 2, then you are talking past each other

Re: Tao: Open math problems being non-renewably mined by AI

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this seem to be where all domains are headed? I get kinda freaked out when I feel like all the AI "utopianists" haven't taken the next logical step of thinking about what society looks like when humans are subpar in every domain (and you may argue this won't happen, though I'm becoming more and more a believer that it will, but my point is the utopianists believe that this absolutely will happen, and that it'…

Obviously it is a ludicrous example, but there are books for this: The Culture novels by Iain. M. Banks. I'd be quite happy as a citizen of The Culture. But, on a more serious note, or more realistic, I find it vaguely insulting that you think that so many of us are just so shallow we'll not figure out how to live meaningful lives in an AI dominated future. The world is already meaningless. Some people live in the US…

The worry “how will people find meaning with super-abundance?” has also me as tone deaf ennui of the already super-privileged. That we should be so lucky to have this worry.
Post reply on HN