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Should Machines Replace Mathematicians?
- kthejoker2 4y agoArticle by the same author back in 1993, "The Death of Proof" https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-death-of-proof/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-death-of-proo... Some key quotes for the tldr crowd: > Anthony Bordg, a mathematician at the University of Cambridge, worries that his field could face a “replication crisis” like that plaguing scientific research. > Researchers at Microsoft have already invented an interactive theorem prover (https://leanprover.github.io/ https://leanprover.github.io/) called Lean that can check proofs and even propose improvements—much as word-processing programs check our prose for errors and finish sentences for us. > Advances in computer-aided mathematics ... raise a profound question: what is the purpose of mathematics? ... worries that tools such as Lean will encourage a “stunted vision” of mathematics as an economic commodity or product rather than “a way of being human.”
- AnimalMuppet 4y agoI'm going to quote from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson: > "Why, we're all seamen about here, I should think," said the lad Dick. > "We're all foc's'le hands, you mean," snapped Silver. "We can all steer a course, but who's to set one? That's what all you gentlemen split on, first and last. If I had my way, I'd have Cap'n Smollett work us back into the trades at least; that way we'd have no blessed miscalculations and a spoonful of water a day." That is, theorem provers may be great. Who's going to create the new theorems? Who's going to create interesting, breakthrough new theorems? The machines? Not yet, they aren't (if ever).
- eternityforest 4y agoCAN machines replace mathematicians? They might be able to replace an average persons need to use algebra, as they have for me, but I suspect they're not gonna replace a prize winning mathematician unless they are AGI.