6 ms·

Congrats to the winners! I’m not sure how accurate this prediction is, but 2026 may be the last time pure humans win the Fields Medal. By 2030, AI could be a co

by num42 3mo ago

Congrats to the winners! I’m not sure how accurate this prediction is, but 2026 may be the last time pure humans win the Fields Medal. By 2030, AI could be a coauthor on many winning results. With recent news about LLMs solving major conjectures, winning IMO gold medals, and so much rapid progress, a lot is happening.

Laurel1234 3mo ago
[flagged]
- kylecazar 3mo ago
  Do humans win Fields medals for formatting and calculation?
  - Laurel1234 3mo ago
    Python does all kinds of wondrous things
- tocs3 3mo ago
  Should we be handing out Fields medal to I don't know, maybe. I would not put Clankers on the same level (or category / level of importance) as people but if they produce the work maybe they should get the credit.
  - hooloovoo_zoo 3mo ago
    Tool-assisted proofs typically already get a description of the tool usage. Even if one wanted to start giving authorship credit to llms, they’re too non-atomic (did it have web search, which mcp?, etc.)
    - tocs3 3mo ago
      Not trying to delving into a deep philosophical question here but... I asked chatgpt to write a poem about my mothers dog a while back. It spit out a poem that my mother likes and keeps around. When asked, I say chatgpt wrote it. If I asked chatgpt for a proof of the Goldbach Conjecture and it spit out a verifiable proof, I think I would go ahead and give chatgpt credit. Not that I think it is likely. It would be more of some ability (like a robot end effector is able to hold an egg) and monkeys at typewriters. Maybe not Fields Medal worthy, but worthy of some credit.
      - hooloovoo_zoo 3mo ago
        Anything morality-related is going to be subjective, but I think there are just too many practical problems with LLMs as coauthors. For me, in a scientific context 'chatgpt' is too vague, and I think it would be logically inconsistent to have LLMs as coauthors and not other forms of Monte Carlo. I also think LLMs are just too mechanical to be ascribed 'people words' (in the same way I don't consider my automated coffee machine a barista).
  - magicalist 3mo ago
    > but if they produce the work maybe they should get the credit But that's not what the Fields Medal is for. If you're a 41 year old mathematician and do amazing groundbreaking world shifting math, you can't get a Fields Medal either.
- MattCruikshank 3mo ago
  We know which bots are the best at Chess. You'd care which AI is the most accurate at diagnosing your medical condition. It's not a bad thing to keep track of which automated systems are the best at certain tasks.
  - Ar-Curunir 3mo ago
    We don't call those bots grandmasters and have them compete in championships, nor do we laud them for beating human grandmasters.
    - bananaflag 3mo ago
      Because in chess you can be sure that no AI was used (and even there, there are controversies, see the recent Niemann/Carlsen scandal). Since math is not usually done in public, under competition rules, no one will know ever again whether some result was really obtained by a human.
    - MattCruikshank 3mo ago
      There are actually championships. People do refer to different bots at being at the Master level, Grandmaster level, etc. In Chess, in Go, etc. They might not be officials, they not might represent the official organizations, but those things do happen.
num42 3mo ago
I don't remember the details exactly. I think earlier this year someone listed an LLM as a coauthor on a paper, maybe in physics or maybe another field. I remember reading about it on Reddit, but I'm not sure when or which paper it was. If anyone remembers what I'm referring to, please let me know.
- BeetleB 3mo ago
  > I think earlier this year someone listed an LLM as a coauthor on a paper This is not as radical as it sounds. People did stuff like that all the time pre-LLM. It's just a question of how fussy the journal's editor is. See https://www.wired.com/2013/03/computers-and-math/ https://www.wired.com/2013/03/computers-and-math/ for examples in math. HN discussion on that article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5322313 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5322313
netvarun 3mo ago
I posted a similar comment when the winners were leaked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48906573 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48906573 i’d like to revise my earlier comment: 2022 may have been the last time we had pure humans win a Fields Medal. I’m fairly certain this batch's winners used LLMs for research, lit-revews, reviewing work, and calculations... perhaps not enough to count as a co-author, but still enough to handle a lot of the grunt work. Who would have imagined the pace of progress in LLM-powered math..
- anvuong 3mo ago
  It's like saying: - winners in the 30s were the last time we have pure human to win (before computer) - winners in the 70s were the last time we have pure human to win (before internet) - winners in the 90s were the last time we have pure human to win (before search engine) Why can't we treat LLMs as just another tool like computers, search engines, computing libraries? Why do people keep trying to anthropomorphizing these binaries? People in the 1800s used to win awards and acclamation by simply hand-cranking numbers for popular calculations (Pi, error functions, etc.) and printing them in a book. This will just be the same thing.
  - falcor84 3mo ago
    But it's not the same thing. I went through this conversation between Terry Tao and ChatGPT about the Jacobian Conjecture counterexample [0] and it looks a lot more like a conversation between peers than him using a tool. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49010345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49010345
    - applfanboysbgon 3mo ago
      "Looks like" being the operative keyword there. Do you feel like you're having a conversation with a peer when you prompt an LLM in the topic you're an expert of? For the love of God, I'd hope not. The whole point is that, even though these things are really good at generating what looks like human output, they are still just regular software algorithms.
pmontra 3mo ago
Fields medals are for humans. We can create an award for AIs for the same reason for humans and machines don't compete against each other in sports. Machines are usually faster and stronger.

by num42 3mo ago

Laurel1234 3mo ago

[flagged]

kylecazar 3mo ago
Do humans win Fields medals for formatting and calculation?
- Laurel1234 3mo ago
  Python does all kinds of wondrous things
tocs3 3mo ago
Should we be handing out Fields medal to I don't know, maybe. I would not put Clankers on the same level (or category / level of importance) as people but if they produce the work maybe they should get the credit.
- hooloovoo_zoo 3mo ago
  Tool-assisted proofs typically already get a description of the tool usage. Even if one wanted to start giving authorship credit to llms, they’re too non-atomic (did it have web search, which mcp?, etc.)
  - tocs3 3mo ago
    Not trying to delving into a deep philosophical question here but... I asked chatgpt to write a poem about my mothers dog a while back. It spit out a poem that my mother likes and keeps around. When asked, I say chatgpt wrote it. If I asked chatgpt for a proof of the Goldbach Conjecture and it spit out a verifiable proof, I think I would go ahead and give chatgpt credit. Not that I think it is likely. It would be more of some ability (like a robot end effector is able to hold an egg) and monkeys at typewriters. Maybe not Fields Medal worthy, but worthy of some credit.
    - hooloovoo_zoo 3mo ago
      Anything morality-related is going to be subjective, but I think there are just too many practical problems with LLMs as coauthors. For me, in a scientific context 'chatgpt' is too vague, and I think it would be logically inconsistent to have LLMs as coauthors and not other forms of Monte Carlo. I also think LLMs are just too mechanical to be ascribed 'people words' (in the same way I don't consider my automated coffee machine a barista).
- magicalist 3mo ago
  > but if they produce the work maybe they should get the credit But that's not what the Fields Medal is for. If you're a 41 year old mathematician and do amazing groundbreaking world shifting math, you can't get a Fields Medal either.
MattCruikshank 3mo ago
We know which bots are the best at Chess. You'd care which AI is the most accurate at diagnosing your medical condition. It's not a bad thing to keep track of which automated systems are the best at certain tasks.
- Ar-Curunir 3mo ago
  We don't call those bots grandmasters and have them compete in championships, nor do we laud them for beating human grandmasters.
  - bananaflag 3mo ago
    Because in chess you can be sure that no AI was used (and even there, there are controversies, see the recent Niemann/Carlsen scandal). Since math is not usually done in public, under competition rules, no one will know ever again whether some result was really obtained by a human.
  - MattCruikshank 3mo ago
    There are actually championships. People do refer to different bots at being at the Master level, Grandmaster level, etc. In Chess, in Go, etc. They might not be officials, they not might represent the official organizations, but those things do happen.

num42 3mo ago

I don't remember the details exactly. I think earlier this year someone listed an LLM as a coauthor on a paper, maybe in physics or maybe another field. I remember reading about it on Reddit, but I'm not sure when or which paper it was. If anyone remembers what I'm referring to, please let me know.

BeetleB 3mo ago
> I think earlier this year someone listed an LLM as a coauthor on a paper This is not as radical as it sounds. People did stuff like that all the time pre-LLM. It's just a question of how fussy the journal's editor is. See https://www.wired.com/2013/03/computers-and-math/ https://www.wired.com/2013/03/computers-and-math/ for examples in math. HN discussion on that article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5322313 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5322313

netvarun 3mo ago

I posted a similar comment when the winners were leaked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48906573 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48906573 i’d like to revise my earlier comment: 2022 may have been the last time we had pure humans win a Fields Medal. I’m fairly certain this batch's winners used LLMs for research, lit-revews, reviewing work, and calculations... perhaps not enough to count as a co-author, but still enough to handle a lot of the grunt work. Who would have imagined the pace of progress in LLM-powered math..

anvuong 3mo ago
It's like saying: - winners in the 30s were the last time we have pure human to win (before computer) - winners in the 70s were the last time we have pure human to win (before internet) - winners in the 90s were the last time we have pure human to win (before search engine) Why can't we treat LLMs as just another tool like computers, search engines, computing libraries? Why do people keep trying to anthropomorphizing these binaries? People in the 1800s used to win awards and acclamation by simply hand-cranking numbers for popular calculations (Pi, error functions, etc.) and printing them in a book. This will just be the same thing.
- falcor84 3mo ago
  But it's not the same thing. I went through this conversation between Terry Tao and ChatGPT about the Jacobian Conjecture counterexample [0] and it looks a lot more like a conversation between peers than him using a tool. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49010345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49010345
  - applfanboysbgon 3mo ago
    "Looks like" being the operative keyword there. Do you feel like you're having a conversation with a peer when you prompt an LLM in the topic you're an expert of? For the love of God, I'd hope not. The whole point is that, even though these things are really good at generating what looks like human output, they are still just regular software algorithms.

pmontra 3mo ago

Fields medals are for humans. We can create an award for AIs for the same reason for humans and machines don't compete against each other in sports. Machines are usually faster and stronger.