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Hey guys, I'm one of the organizers. AMA. - We are a team of undergrads at Caltech. We don't represent Caltech, any Caltech departments, or any of our sponsors

Hey guys, I'm one of the organizers. AMA. - We are a team of undergrads at Caltech. We don't represent Caltech, any Caltech departments, or any of our sponsors. - We don't receive monetary compensation. All the funding raised goes toward paying our judges and participants. - Our goal is to promote responsible AI use. You can read more about our commitments here: https://mathathonchallenge.com/faq.html https://mathathonchallenge.com/faq.html

fred123123 19d ago
Hey! Any indication on what area of mathematics theses questions are from?
- brian-bfz 19d ago
  You pick your own problem! You can even formulate your own conjecture and then prove it. Picking an impactful problem is part of our judging criteria.
  - fred123123 19d ago
    That sound cool!, do you have hints on the cash prizes the website said something like 2 M ???
    - jegutman 19d ago
      That’s tokens available I assume for all competitors during the competition.
maypop 19d ago
Is this hackathon only for those with formal math backgrounds? I've seen a few instances of AI assisted advances math and cs this year that were _not_ published by authors with formal backgrounds in those fields (or even institutional affiliation). Which makes me wonder if they would have a place at the event.
- brian-bfz 19d ago
  Yes. To us, solving a problem with AI doesn't matter as much as selecting the right problem and understanding the proof. A participant must have a good mathematical intuition.
  - smcin 19d ago
    How much formal math background is required? Undergrad/graduate/PhD/...? For one person on each team or everyone?
  - wltyn 19d ago
    Does Mech Eng masters count?
queuebert 19d ago
Serious question: Are you sure solving abstract mathematical problems with AI is responsible use? You will likely put mathematicians out of jobs, and I doubt solving the Collatz conjecture is urgent or will save lives. It also robs a future Fields medalist of the pride of doing all by themselves. All things AI seems to assume that more and faster is better, but there is no justification of that assumption. As a biological counterexample, a tree grown quickly will likely not be as healthy or strong as one grown slowly.
- ktallett 19d ago
  I get your point and agree to some extent, but you can't understand the proof without significant background in Maths so it will just allow mathematicians to solve issues faster than not have the opportunity at all.
  - a2ff6eeb0 19d ago
    Why do people need to understand proofs? If Amazon improves package routing with new advances in graph theory, my cat doesn't need to understand it to benefit from better shipments of cat food. Similarly, humans don't need to be involved in scientific advances to benefit. We just need an aligned AI to take over the scientific thought for us. AI is already better than all but the top tier of humans at doing mathematics, it's writing most of the posts on the front page of this website, and it's doing the bulk of programming at many startups. We can't put this genie back in the bottle.
    - mattmcal 19d ago
      Well, for one, most math proofs don't have any practical applications, so a proof that no one reads is basically a digital paperweight. You might as well suggest AI write novels for other AI to read.
      - a2ff6eeb0 19d ago
        The hope is that some of them end up being useful; otherwise, nobody would be funding math departments. Mathematics typically anticipates and enables new physics and chemistry. If people are just doing math to kill time, I don't get why anyone would bother with AI. Do people really enjoy picking through a million lines of generated Lean code, if it's not for any practical use?
danielmarkbruce 19d ago
Why not specify 2-3 problems? Won't you have people show up having already spent a bunch of time on their self chosen problem? Which sort of defeats the point of seeing what you can do in a short period of time?
- brian-bfz 19d ago
  Solving a problem is the easy part with AI. Selecting a problem worth solving is half of the challenge. We allow prior work as long as it's labelled. We record chat logs, so it's easy to verify what's prior work. When we evaluate the significance of a result, we focus on the part produced at the event.
  - ajkjk 19d ago
    it seems like a person could cheat by finding an open problem that's AI-solvable ahead of time (by trying many problems), and then pretend to do it for the first time in the competition. You can't verify past chat logs so make sure they didn't already realize it would work. just something to think about
    - brian-bfz 19d ago
      We are giving each team $20k AI credits. I hope they will use it to solve problems beyond the reach of regular AI plans.
      - danielmarkbruce 19d ago
        Ok. This all makes sense I guess. Good going, hope it goes well.
bwfan123 18d ago
In your final report of this experiment, can you also report the following: How many problems were NOT solved by AI in spite of attempts. What is missing in the debate of AI in math is that only the successful cases are reported. To get a balanced picture of the effectiveness of AI, what is also needed are cases where it failed.
deleted 16d ago
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fred123123 19d ago

Hey! Any indication on what area of mathematics theses questions are from?

brian-bfz 19d ago
You pick your own problem! You can even formulate your own conjecture and then prove it. Picking an impactful problem is part of our judging criteria.
- fred123123 19d ago
  That sound cool!, do you have hints on the cash prizes the website said something like 2 M ???
  - jegutman 19d ago
    That’s tokens available I assume for all competitors during the competition.

maypop 19d ago

Is this hackathon only for those with formal math backgrounds? I've seen a few instances of AI assisted advances math and cs this year that were _not_ published by authors with formal backgrounds in those fields (or even institutional affiliation). Which makes me wonder if they would have a place at the event.

brian-bfz 19d ago
Yes. To us, solving a problem with AI doesn't matter as much as selecting the right problem and understanding the proof. A participant must have a good mathematical intuition.
- smcin 19d ago
  How much formal math background is required? Undergrad/graduate/PhD/...? For one person on each team or everyone?
- wltyn 19d ago
  Does Mech Eng masters count?

queuebert 19d ago

Serious question: Are you sure solving abstract mathematical problems with AI is responsible use? You will likely put mathematicians out of jobs, and I doubt solving the Collatz conjecture is urgent or will save lives. It also robs a future Fields medalist of the pride of doing all by themselves. All things AI seems to assume that more and faster is better, but there is no justification of that assumption. As a biological counterexample, a tree grown quickly will likely not be as healthy or strong as one grown slowly.

ktallett 19d ago
I get your point and agree to some extent, but you can't understand the proof without significant background in Maths so it will just allow mathematicians to solve issues faster than not have the opportunity at all.
- a2ff6eeb0 19d ago
  Why do people need to understand proofs? If Amazon improves package routing with new advances in graph theory, my cat doesn't need to understand it to benefit from better shipments of cat food. Similarly, humans don't need to be involved in scientific advances to benefit. We just need an aligned AI to take over the scientific thought for us. AI is already better than all but the top tier of humans at doing mathematics, it's writing most of the posts on the front page of this website, and it's doing the bulk of programming at many startups. We can't put this genie back in the bottle.
  - mattmcal 19d ago
    Well, for one, most math proofs don't have any practical applications, so a proof that no one reads is basically a digital paperweight. You might as well suggest AI write novels for other AI to read.
    - a2ff6eeb0 19d ago
      The hope is that some of them end up being useful; otherwise, nobody would be funding math departments. Mathematics typically anticipates and enables new physics and chemistry. If people are just doing math to kill time, I don't get why anyone would bother with AI. Do people really enjoy picking through a million lines of generated Lean code, if it's not for any practical use?

danielmarkbruce 19d ago

Why not specify 2-3 problems? Won't you have people show up having already spent a bunch of time on their self chosen problem? Which sort of defeats the point of seeing what you can do in a short period of time?

brian-bfz 19d ago
Solving a problem is the easy part with AI. Selecting a problem worth solving is half of the challenge. We allow prior work as long as it's labelled. We record chat logs, so it's easy to verify what's prior work. When we evaluate the significance of a result, we focus on the part produced at the event.
- ajkjk 19d ago
  it seems like a person could cheat by finding an open problem that's AI-solvable ahead of time (by trying many problems), and then pretend to do it for the first time in the competition. You can't verify past chat logs so make sure they didn't already realize it would work. just something to think about
  - brian-bfz 19d ago
    We are giving each team $20k AI credits. I hope they will use it to solve problems beyond the reach of regular AI plans.
    - danielmarkbruce 19d ago
      Ok. This all makes sense I guess. Good going, hope it goes well.

bwfan123 18d ago

In your final report of this experiment, can you also report the following: How many problems were NOT solved by AI in spite of attempts. What is missing in the debate of AI in math is that only the successful cases are reported. To get a balanced picture of the effectiveness of AI, what is also needed are cases where it failed.

deleted 16d ago

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