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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

#41

Post by datsci_est_2015 »

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.

To further this assertion, there is almost no value to deeply esoteric math that is technically correct, but completely inapplicable to any scientific reality, and completely unintelligible to humans. Consider these findings deep, dark corners in the unfathomably large hyperspace of mathematics. My guess is AI will be incredibly adept at identifying these types of findings, and it will be exceedingly difficult for humans to identify what is meaningful and what is not in the slop.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#42

Post by golol »

cryo32 wrote: post #4

As a mathematician by trade I think they’re overblowing it. You can choose to use it or not. I choose not to because I enjoy the process. But I’m not doing formal research or getting paid to do it these days. I will note that the average corporate mathematical modelling is usually a fucking circus so adding AI might make it better.

Read the declaration. The article misrepresents it imo. It is not strongly opinionated.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#44

Post by hyperpape »

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.

Even from the most purely instrumental perspective, what we care about is our ability to make use of correct answers, which is quite distinct from the possession of correct answers.

There are many theorems that aren't directly interesting, but whose proof requires techniques that are of substantial further interest, that lead to new domains, and/or new practical applications. Simply being handed a proof for those theorems isn't enough--we require the ability to apply those techniques in the real world, or discover further areas of mathematical research that build on that proof or its techniques.

It may be that AI can build on its own work for the long-term, but so far, AI does best at exploration in areas that have precisely specified and measurable goals. Actually creating understanding, and making use of mathemtical results outside of pure mathematics is more challenging than simply creating proofs.

I think the field will figure out how to make use of AI, and it will be better off for it. But that is not the same as just saying "answers good, grog want more answers."

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#45

Post by juleiie »

I will argue that AI and flood of low quality slop makes genuine human work more valuable, not less.

The ability to clearly outmatch trillion dollar machines is a very unique satisfaction. I even write ordinary internet comments with an intention to make them clearly better and more fun to read than boring Claude output.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#46

Post by armchairhacker »

conformist wrote: post #40
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 authors warn the consequences are already becoming visible. AI-generated papers could overwhelm peer-review systems with low-quality work … It seems like a key problem here is that peer-review is expected but not explicitly funded/rewarded while it is probably one of the aspects where humans still add a lot of value. Academia’s incentives are hugely misaligned (… as usual unfortunately).

Math is one field where you can mechanically prove a paper's findings. The only thing that would need to be judged is the (verified) statement's importance.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#47

Post by dhfbshfbu4u3 »

In a year, none of this will really matter. Intelligence is now a scalable resource independent of biological constraints. Everyone will use it because the system will no longer afford them the luxury of time. In a decade (maybe sooner), references won’t matter either.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#48

Post by turzmo »

Much of math (or science) research has the strange quality of being mostly curiosity-driven, but having giant benefits that occasionally spin out to the public.

Some questions are more urgent and practical. My feeling is that the more directly practical a question is, the more likely the research community is to support AI usage in that question.

The annoying thing about recent AI advances is that they target questions on the wrong end of the spectrum: Erdos problems are exactly the sort of "useless" questions that people might answer purely for the love of the game. The sort of questions that a young person might cut their teeth on and gain confidence.

Solving questions like these automatically, I think, is not good for the long-term health of research. At least for the foreseeable future you still would like people to become interested and develop skills in these fields. These developments, and especially how they are presented, directly discourage that.

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#49

Post by pjc50 »

dhfbshfbu4u3 wrote: post #47

In a year, none of this will really matter. Intelligence is now a scalable resource independent of biological constraints. Everyone will use it because the system will no longer afford them the luxury of time. In a decade (maybe sooner), references won’t matter either.

Does it matter whether any of this is correct?

(Mathematics at least has the potential for automated non-AI proof checking, although I don't think that's as widely used as you'd expect)

Re: Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground

#50

Post by conformist »

armchairhacker wrote: post #46
conformist wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The authors warn the consequences are already becoming visible. AI-generated papers could overwhelm peer-review systems with low-quality work … It seems like a key problem here is that peer-review is expected but not explicitly funded/rewarded while it is probably one of the aspects where humans still add a lot of value. Academia’s incentives are hugely misaligned (… as usual unfortunately).

Math is one field where you can mechanically prove a paper's findings. The only thing that would need to be judged is the (verified) statement's importance.

Yes in theory, but not yet in practice because not everything is fully formalised.
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