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> primarily as a marketing exercise Like the mathematicians working on famous problems in private until they could claim full credit for something interesting

• paulhebert 17d ago
  These mathematicians dedicated their life to math and were working for a long time to achieve the pinnacle of their careers. OpenAI just burned millions of dollars over a weekend after hearing that someone else was close to solving the problems. Their interest was in their AI system more than the actual math problems. Don’t you see how that’s different?
  • ralph84 17d ago
    I see how it can be devastating to their ego, but no, I don't see a particular difference in a company spending money for clout vs. a person spending time for clout. The underlying motivation is the same.
    • paulhebert 17d ago
      Do you really think people dedicate their life to mathematics for clout? If clout was the goal I don’t think becoming a lifelong mathematics academic would be the first step
      • pickleRick243 17d ago
        for many fairly strong mathematicians, the career calculus is fame and status (mild though it may be) through mathematics or anonymity but financial reward in tech or finance. Yes, clout by becoming a lifelong academic is in fact rational for some and part of their motivation. Of course they really like what they do as well, but earning the respect of the peers they know are also respected by a large swathe of society is very important.
        • paulhebert 17d ago
          Yeah that’s totally fair! I guess that type of “clout” feels different to me. Wanting to be validated by peers for your talents in a niche field vs. using millions to try to solve a math problem that you don’t really care about with AI to market the gigantic company you work for.
        • gammarator 17d ago
          I think you’re right that some of the angst here is due to a fairly insular community having its culture disturbed by commercial forces.
          • milindsmart 17d ago
            That fairly insular community pretty much gave up on commercial success in order to be insular. But the commercial forces were not happy being commercially successful, so they decided to disturb even their insular and commercially-unviable activities.
  • phoghed 17d ago
    Yeah bro, same for probably the majority of this site that write software for a living and/or hobby.
    • paulhebert 17d ago
      Sorry I’m not entirely sure what you’re trying to say
      • phoghed 17d ago
        How good were you at those “A is to B as C is to D” SAT questions?
        • paulhebert 17d ago
          No need to be rude. I didn’t want to misinterpret when responding. I can see how what is happening to mathematicians is similar to what is happening to coding. I’m not sure what your broader point is? Mathematicians shouldn’t be upset? Coders should? Something else?
          • phoghed 17d ago
            The point is that nearly every white collar worker is in the same boat right now, and the majority of them probably have already had much more profound impacts to their fields. So yeah, we can certainly imagine what it’s like for mathematicians.
            • paulhebert 17d ago
              Okay. I agree with all that you said in your latest comment. From your first comment it seemed like you were disagreeing with me but I’m not sure how. That’s why I asked for clarification. Edit: BTW I’m a web developer and designer, Not a mathematician
• gjulianm 16d ago
  > Like the mathematicians working on famous problems in private This is an extremely rare situation that practically never happens. Most mathematical research is done in the open, with partial results being published, conferences where approaches are discussed, collaborations... The Navier-Stokes solution is a great example: the approach that OpenAI ended up using was something that two mathematicians had proposed previously and was being studied and followed by several others, with different sub-paths within the same approach.