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Isn't this sucking the fun out of math? It's not like we're going to get any tangible benefit out of them, so why not let mathematicians keep their jobs?
by esafak 3mo ago
Isn't this sucking the fun out of math? It's not like we're going to get any tangible benefit out of them, so why not let mathematicians keep their jobs?
- no_multitudes 3mo agoThis will keep happening until we stop people from doing it.
- rgarrett88 3mo agoGet the looms while you're at it
- yieldcrv 3mo ago[flagged]
- thejokeisonme 3mo ago| your brain on neocapitalism |
- zamadatix 3mo agoThe thing about math is we don't usually know what is pure fancy and what is civilization altering until far after the discovery. Once in a while it's a real targeted crack at something practical but most often it's collecting things which seem trial until you use them together and suddenly you have computers running LLMs. If it were really just about funding people who like math to have fun then it's easy to do forever: just don't have them look at the results and keep paying.
- esafak 3mo agoWhat is their pay going to be justified by once computers start conjecturing and proving theorems on their own?
- derektank 3mo agoAttending department faculty meetings
- pfdietz 3mo agoWe have found the true use case for AI.
- ralusek 3mo agoThis is kind of insane reasoning. It's basically asking "what is their pay going to be justified by once their pay isn't justified?"
- esafak 3mo agoI think you're trying to say their pay won't be justified? You are not being clear.
- srcreigh 3mo agoMathematicians will be the ones who can tell us if the computer theorems are decent or not. Otherwise they’ll be the ones like Erdős who pose the questions in the first place. Either way it will always be humans who decide what matters. AI is speaking our languages, not the other way around. We’re in charge. It’s impossible for us not to be, unless we can train an AI from dolphin data or other natural phenomenon. The AIs intelligence is tuned to us and in 300 years we’ll need new training runs for the update from human zeitgeist language and the 2200 century famous mathematicians.
- esafak 3mo ago> Either way it will always be humans who decide what matters. AI is speaking our languages, not the other way around. We’re in charge. It’s impossible for us not to be, unless we can train an AI from dolphin data or other natural phenomenon. AI companies are accruing power by virtue of its knowledge and ability to do work. If endowed with agency, which seems likely at this rate, it is the AI itself that will be powerful. And we'll be in charge because AI is trained on human language? I can't fathom the logic behind this.
- Reubend 3mo agoIsn't the pursuit of knowledge alone good enough?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- Legend2440 3mo agoThe job of a mathematician is to study mathematics, not to create proofs. An automatic proof solver doesn't make mathematicians obsolete any more than the excel sheet made accountants obsolete.
- esafak 3mo agoConjectures and proofs are the fruit of the understanding. Nobody gets paid to think without producing anything.
- moi2388 3mo agoHow about philosophers?
- QuesnayJr 3mo agoThey get paid to produce confusion.
- weatherlite 3mo agoThey're getting paid?
- psychoslave 3mo agoIt looks like it might confuse you, so they did the job well apparently.
- QuesnayJr 3mo agoPhilosophy majors do surprisingly well in getting jobs outside academia, so I think the market demand for confusion is bigger than you might guess.
- weatherlite 3mo agoAt Burger King?
- piloto_ciego 3mo agoThat’s the problem, the coupling of work with the right to survive
- jibal 3mo agoYou went deep ... and I for one appreciate it.
- piloto_ciego 3mo agoI mean, it doesn’t have to be deep to be meaningful. The connection between “needing to work” and “right to continue existing” is THE problem with society right now. You think AI boomers are paranoid because they think robots are going to replace the jobs? People are paranoid because they don’t know how they’re going to exist in a post-work world.
- jibal 3mo agoBoomers? I'm a boomer who retired 8 years ago. The youngest boomers hit retirement age in 3 years. It's not boomers who are worried.
- piloto_ciego 3mo agoTypo on my part, “doomers”
- jibal 3mo agoOh ... never mind! (In the voice of Gilda Radner.)
- piloto_ciego 3mo agoHah! Fair call out though, just a typo from me. Hope your Saturday is going well.
- Oarch 3mo agoIt's probably more akin to changing where the fun is in maths.
- Shorel 3mo agoIn undergraduate math it doesn't matter if someone else did prove a result a hundred years before you. You still need to write your own proof and deeply understand it. Maybe in the most advanced PhD math it can have some impact, but these proofs are becoming intractable by humans alone.
- energy123 3mo agoI don't envy the talented young research mathematicians starting their career now. While there's still space to distinguish yourself (inventing completely new mathematics), the path to recognition is narrow.
- dudeinjapan 3mo ago> Inventing completely new mathematics There will be fewer good mathematicians, but more great mathematicians!