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I think the letter is misguided. So what if the AI labs are misaligned to math? - But they announced a result before a paper was peer reviewed! The horror! So

by stbede 21d ago

I think the letter is misguided. So what if the AI labs are misaligned to math? - But they announced a result before a paper was peer reviewed! The horror! So what? The mathematics community can read the paper once it is written up. - But their results they publish may not care about conceptual understanding and insight! So what? If that's the mathematics community's goal, then they should sift through the lean proof and reformat the ideas to make them more insightful and develop their own conceptual understanding. - But they aren't bothering to do literature review to tell the history about how humans contributed to the final result! So what? If it's so important to the mathematical community, they can do that themselves and throw a party every Tuesday in the honor of Luis Martínez-Zoroa and wear jeans on casual Friday in honor of Buckmaster and Alpöge - the left leg for Buckmaster and the right for Alpöge. An AI giving a definite result of an open problem doesn't decrease the mathematical community's insight or conceptual understanding. They are still free to continue doing their work and pursuing their goals. If it's really so bad, they can just pretend they don't know NS is solved and keep spending their efforts trying to prove it never blows up (or a hand full of them can try to blow it up from scratch). Guess what! I spend no part of my life working on unsolved math problems. I read some books for pleasure. I work in a hospitable with sick kids. I help my wife raise our kids. My goals are misaligned with the mathematics community! I've done nothing to increase conceptual understanding and insight! So what?

MattGaiser 21d ago
This whole discussion is basically a field demanding that their field be preserved for them alone to discover. No competition allowed besides the monks of mathematics.
- rramadass 21d ago
  No. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49679494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49679494
- GPerson 21d ago
  You can invent whatever fantasy you like. I hope more honest people will read the letter (from the fields medalists and other endorsers) and consider it on its merits.
  - stbede 21d ago
    Here's the thing. I read the letter. I'm considering it on its merits. And it has very little. They made great arguments for why it's a good thing that the mathematical community operates the way they do. They could have made a good argument for why practitioners within the mathematical community shouldn't be seduced by the power of AI and should continue to build mathematics they way they do now. Ignoring AI as a tool, but perhaps not ignoring the results coming out of it, builds understanding and skill and develops humans. I'd be all for a letter that calls on humanity to not give up their humanity to AI tools. To not become lazy and overly dependent on them. The letter makes no arguments why AI companies proving a bunch of results quickly at all affects the ability of mathematicians to do what they want to do. It's just a giant self-congratulatory list of all the wonderful things the mathematical community does and notes that AI companies aren't doing the same thing. It's not enough for them that they are still free to pursue all the goals they outline in that letter to their hearts content. They want to make sure everyone else doing mathematics also sets aside their own goals and pursue theirs. I distrust AI as a technology regardless of alignment. And I've learned to just not use them and focus on the things in my life that matter to me. It turns out that I'm still free to pursue the things in my life that are meaningful regardless of the existence of LLMs.
    - rramadass 21d ago
      Your comment is both clueless and disingenuous. As i have mentioned in my other comments here; The communique from the mathematicians when shorn of polite language is blunt viz. AI companies are stealing our hard-won lifelong research findings, which we were already sharing freely, without attribution/credit and building upon them without informed consent nor compensation. It should now be clear that the AI companies behaviour i.e. backstabbing the mathematicians and stealing their life's work is the problem and not the usage of AI itself. I also pointed you to Self-Determination Theory(SDT) to understand Intrinsic/Extrinsic Motivations that drives Mathematicians (and also Scientists/Researchers/Knowledge-workers) to spend their entire lives in the pursuit of knowledge. From SDT it can be seen that the AI companies behaviour, threatens everybody's Autonomy, nullifies their Mastery/Competence and robs them of Purpose/Relatedness/Belongingness. Nobody should accept this.
- stbede 21d ago
  Shouldn't the AI companies know by now that all mathematical knowledge belongs to the mathematical community? Hopefully this letter knocks some sense into them.
- mag7269 21d ago
  Spot on. They now feel threatened that there's multiple challengers to their intellectual monopoly. This is their "whaaahhh... whaaahhhh... private company bad, now," but where OK when Halliburton, Boeing, General Dynamics, Monsanto, Open Society Foundation, Tides Foundation and many other shitty and scummy private and so-called "non-profit" entities were funding their shit. Now their entire business model is changing. Is not that it'll completely collapse, it's just changing and they are throwing a bitchy fit.
  - pfdietz 19d ago
    It's amazing what people will do when their salaries are threatened.
rramadass 21d ago
You might want to read up on "Self-Determination Theory" on how Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivations works in Humans - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory For a nice introduction, see Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation by Edward Deci - https://thorprojects.com/2020/05/04/book-review-why-we-do-what-we-do/ https://thorprojects.com/2020/05/04/book-review-why-we-do-wh... Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49679494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49679494
- stbede 21d ago
  I might want to. Would you explain its relevance here and make a pitch for me doing so.
  - rramadass 21d ago
    The relevance can be seen from the second link above (the review of the book) which highlights the essential points viz. the importance of Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation. It is short enough that you can easily go through it. Then apply it to understand why mathematicians are angry.
    - stbede 21d ago
      I don't understand why you can't just articulate the point yourself. It took me a while to guess what you were getting at. Could it be the quote: Our egos are powerful things. They want to believe that we’re each better than we are, and we want to believe that we’ve mastered our chosen areas – that we’re the best. Whether that’s objectively verifiable or just wishful thinking isn’t the point. If we want to motivate people, we’ll give them ways to become masters or, at the very least, allow them to feel competent in what they’re doing. In which case, yes, there is a loss of that source of motivation. And that's coming for us all - or rather it's coming for some of us in most professions. Most people are perfectly average in their chosen areas and never got the satisfaction of being at the top of their profession. Yet we still go to work. I imagine it will take some getting use to for Fields Medalists, but I think the average grad student that happened to just love mathematics and never aspired to be a medalist will still like doing math. Magnus Carlsen still became the best chess player ever even though AI's have been better than humans for decades now. Most sources of intrinsic motivation are unaffected by these developments in AI. It may be the case that extrinsic motivations may be harmed by all of this if there's less money for mathematicians in the math community. The letter lists a lot of reasons to like how the math community does math, and I don't see any real reason they can't just keep doing math that way. Honestly, I still don't understand the point you're trying to make. Or the realization you're hoping I'll have.

by stbede 21d ago

MattGaiser 21d ago

This whole discussion is basically a field demanding that their field be preserved for them alone to discover. No competition allowed besides the monks of mathematics.

rramadass 21d ago
No. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49679494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49679494
GPerson 21d ago
You can invent whatever fantasy you like. I hope more honest people will read the letter (from the fields medalists and other endorsers) and consider it on its merits.
- stbede 21d ago
  Here's the thing. I read the letter. I'm considering it on its merits. And it has very little. They made great arguments for why it's a good thing that the mathematical community operates the way they do. They could have made a good argument for why practitioners within the mathematical community shouldn't be seduced by the power of AI and should continue to build mathematics they way they do now. Ignoring AI as a tool, but perhaps not ignoring the results coming out of it, builds understanding and skill and develops humans. I'd be all for a letter that calls on humanity to not give up their humanity to AI tools. To not become lazy and overly dependent on them. The letter makes no arguments why AI companies proving a bunch of results quickly at all affects the ability of mathematicians to do what they want to do. It's just a giant self-congratulatory list of all the wonderful things the mathematical community does and notes that AI companies aren't doing the same thing. It's not enough for them that they are still free to pursue all the goals they outline in that letter to their hearts content. They want to make sure everyone else doing mathematics also sets aside their own goals and pursue theirs. I distrust AI as a technology regardless of alignment. And I've learned to just not use them and focus on the things in my life that matter to me. It turns out that I'm still free to pursue the things in my life that are meaningful regardless of the existence of LLMs.
  - rramadass 21d ago
    Your comment is both clueless and disingenuous. As i have mentioned in my other comments here; The communique from the mathematicians when shorn of polite language is blunt viz. AI companies are stealing our hard-won lifelong research findings, which we were already sharing freely, without attribution/credit and building upon them without informed consent nor compensation. It should now be clear that the AI companies behaviour i.e. backstabbing the mathematicians and stealing their life's work is the problem and not the usage of AI itself. I also pointed you to Self-Determination Theory(SDT) to understand Intrinsic/Extrinsic Motivations that drives Mathematicians (and also Scientists/Researchers/Knowledge-workers) to spend their entire lives in the pursuit of knowledge. From SDT it can be seen that the AI companies behaviour, threatens everybody's Autonomy, nullifies their Mastery/Competence and robs them of Purpose/Relatedness/Belongingness. Nobody should accept this.
stbede 21d ago
Shouldn't the AI companies know by now that all mathematical knowledge belongs to the mathematical community? Hopefully this letter knocks some sense into them.
mag7269 21d ago
Spot on. They now feel threatened that there's multiple challengers to their intellectual monopoly. This is their "whaaahhh... whaaahhhh... private company bad, now," but where OK when Halliburton, Boeing, General Dynamics, Monsanto, Open Society Foundation, Tides Foundation and many other shitty and scummy private and so-called "non-profit" entities were funding their shit. Now their entire business model is changing. Is not that it'll completely collapse, it's just changing and they are throwing a bitchy fit.
- pfdietz 19d ago
  It's amazing what people will do when their salaries are threatened.

rramadass 21d ago

You might want to read up on "Self-Determination Theory" on how Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivations works in Humans - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory For a nice introduction, see Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation by Edward Deci - https://thorprojects.com/2020/05/04/book-review-why-we-do-what-we-do/ https://thorprojects.com/2020/05/04/book-review-why-we-do-wh... Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49679494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49679494

stbede 21d ago
I might want to. Would you explain its relevance here and make a pitch for me doing so.
- rramadass 21d ago
  The relevance can be seen from the second link above (the review of the book) which highlights the essential points viz. the importance of Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation. It is short enough that you can easily go through it. Then apply it to understand why mathematicians are angry.
  - stbede 21d ago
    I don't understand why you can't just articulate the point yourself. It took me a while to guess what you were getting at. Could it be the quote: Our egos are powerful things. They want to believe that we’re each better than we are, and we want to believe that we’ve mastered our chosen areas – that we’re the best. Whether that’s objectively verifiable or just wishful thinking isn’t the point. If we want to motivate people, we’ll give them ways to become masters or, at the very least, allow them to feel competent in what they’re doing. In which case, yes, there is a loss of that source of motivation. And that's coming for us all - or rather it's coming for some of us in most professions. Most people are perfectly average in their chosen areas and never got the satisfaction of being at the top of their profession. Yet we still go to work. I imagine it will take some getting use to for Fields Medalists, but I think the average grad student that happened to just love mathematics and never aspired to be a medalist will still like doing math. Magnus Carlsen still became the best chess player ever even though AI's have been better than humans for decades now. Most sources of intrinsic motivation are unaffected by these developments in AI. It may be the case that extrinsic motivations may be harmed by all of this if there's less money for mathematicians in the math community. The letter lists a lot of reasons to like how the math community does math, and I don't see any real reason they can't just keep doing math that way. Honestly, I still don't understand the point you're trying to make. Or the realization you're hoping I'll have.