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But did you read the letter, or are you familiar with the people signing it? Several things tell me you didn’t: - The useful part of math is the tools, the und

But did you read the letter, or are you familiar with the people signing it? Several things tell me you didn’t: - The useful part of math is the tools, the understanding and the theories. Knowing whether the result is true or not is usually not useful. Imagine an AI that just says “cancer can be cured” but doesn’t say how: that’s what the letter is criticizing. - Terry Tao is one of the biggest proponents of AI use in math. He’s been for quite some time and he shares a lot on his blog. Seriously, it seems like you’re arguing about some idea you have in your head and you’re not making the effort to actually understand anything about this letter.

bonoboTP 21d ago
AI won't just say cancer can be cured without saying how. Not sure where you got this from. AI will be superhuman at writing the executive summary at any prerequisite knowledge level. These people are concerned about internal community dynamics like tenure, chairs, PhDs, grad students, the whole ecosystem, papers, hiring, conferences, journals etc. But the wider population doesn't care about this and academics don't understand that nobody cares about this outside their bubble. As Feynman said, "mathematicians can research what they please. If you want something else, you work it out yourself" (not verbatim). Indeed, now people can do this with AI and it makes mathematicians salty that they will have less prestige.
- gjulianm 21d ago
  > AI won't just say cancer can be cured without saying how. It was an example, an analogy to argue that answering a question might not be as important as how it arrives to that question. Hence the “imagine”. > These people are concerned about internal community dynamics like tenure, chairs, PhDs, grad students, the whole ecosystem, papers, hiring, conferences, journals etc. You just described most of the parts of the mathematical community. > But the wider population doesn't care about this and academics don't understand that nobody cares about this outside their bubble. I don’t care about the logistic system and yet I want my food to be in the market. If the population at large wants to use mathematics they will have to find a way to support a mathematical community. Now, if you don’t want mathematics, again, go argue about that. > Indeed, now people can do this with AI and it makes mathematicians salty that they will have less prestige. Except that they can’t. I do not know how many more times we need to explain that “answering questions” is not what mathematics is about. That if that path is followed, then mathematics will suffer as a result and the pace of mathematical development will slow down. Honestly, I think it would be better for you to really stop attributing the arguments of mathematicians that are by no means anti AI to saltiness or other childish feelings. Try to be more humble and try to find what kind of ideas they might hold for them to argue this letter. Of course, that requires reading the letter and trying to understand it.
  - bonoboTP 21d ago
    > You just described most of the parts of the mathematical community Just as science (as in the scientific method) isn't the same as Science, the community social practice and logistics and tenure rules and committee compositions and journal page limits etc, mathematics is not the same as the academic mathematics community. They are not the sole producers of mathematics and not the sole users. The funding is largely in the hopes of the usefulness of the resulting math. Not all. Some funding is like art and culture funding, for propagating a cultural legacy, like folk dance also gets funding and experimental performance theater also gets some tax funding. But that's not the bulk currently in math. I have read the letter. It's all about stuff of holding back because they don't want the answer key because prestige reasons, and how will grad students train their brain if we have too many answers. This doesn't consider that many people, like engineers, use math as a tool. They don't want to hold math back. It's fine to think that applications are too dirty. Again, they want funding, they have to explain why exactly they should get it. And it better be an explanation that still holds water with AI available. They can do the aesthetic math as an art side project like an accountant can paint or sing off the clock. But generally you also don't pay everyone for their hobbies even if those hobbies are nice culturally rich endeavors.
    - gjulianm 21d ago
      > I have read the letter. And you have not understood it. > they don't want the answer key because prestige reasons No, that’s not the reason. They don’t want the answer key because the answer key is useless. > This doesn't consider that many people, like engineers, use math as a tool Of course it considers it. Many people, like engineers, could not care less about the answers to most problems mathematicians work on. They do care about the tools they develop in the process. I’ve already shown examples of this but I’ll do it again: Galois theory was developed when trying to answer whether there are formulas to solve roots of polynomials of degree 5. Fourier analysis was developed when trying to find an analytical solution to the heat equation. Riemann developed his geometry to explore which Euclidean axioms were actually important. None of the direct answers were as important as how they got to them. > Again, they want funding, they have to explain why exactly they should get it. And it better be an explanation that still holds water with AI available. The explanation will be exactly the same. Only it will not be just hard to explain why the problem is important, but also it will be harder to explain that no, just the answer by itself is not useful without the understanding. Just like I am here having a really hard time explaining to someone who doesn’t understand how mathematical research works why “just getting the answer” is not a useful output.

bonoboTP 21d ago

AI won't just say cancer can be cured without saying how. Not sure where you got this from. AI will be superhuman at writing the executive summary at any prerequisite knowledge level. These people are concerned about internal community dynamics like tenure, chairs, PhDs, grad students, the whole ecosystem, papers, hiring, conferences, journals etc. But the wider population doesn't care about this and academics don't understand that nobody cares about this outside their bubble. As Feynman said, "mathematicians can research what they please. If you want something else, you work it out yourself" (not verbatim). Indeed, now people can do this with AI and it makes mathematicians salty that they will have less prestige.

gjulianm 21d ago
> AI won't just say cancer can be cured without saying how. It was an example, an analogy to argue that answering a question might not be as important as how it arrives to that question. Hence the “imagine”. > These people are concerned about internal community dynamics like tenure, chairs, PhDs, grad students, the whole ecosystem, papers, hiring, conferences, journals etc. You just described most of the parts of the mathematical community. > But the wider population doesn't care about this and academics don't understand that nobody cares about this outside their bubble. I don’t care about the logistic system and yet I want my food to be in the market. If the population at large wants to use mathematics they will have to find a way to support a mathematical community. Now, if you don’t want mathematics, again, go argue about that. > Indeed, now people can do this with AI and it makes mathematicians salty that they will have less prestige. Except that they can’t. I do not know how many more times we need to explain that “answering questions” is not what mathematics is about. That if that path is followed, then mathematics will suffer as a result and the pace of mathematical development will slow down. Honestly, I think it would be better for you to really stop attributing the arguments of mathematicians that are by no means anti AI to saltiness or other childish feelings. Try to be more humble and try to find what kind of ideas they might hold for them to argue this letter. Of course, that requires reading the letter and trying to understand it.
- bonoboTP 21d ago
  > You just described most of the parts of the mathematical community Just as science (as in the scientific method) isn't the same as Science, the community social practice and logistics and tenure rules and committee compositions and journal page limits etc, mathematics is not the same as the academic mathematics community. They are not the sole producers of mathematics and not the sole users. The funding is largely in the hopes of the usefulness of the resulting math. Not all. Some funding is like art and culture funding, for propagating a cultural legacy, like folk dance also gets funding and experimental performance theater also gets some tax funding. But that's not the bulk currently in math. I have read the letter. It's all about stuff of holding back because they don't want the answer key because prestige reasons, and how will grad students train their brain if we have too many answers. This doesn't consider that many people, like engineers, use math as a tool. They don't want to hold math back. It's fine to think that applications are too dirty. Again, they want funding, they have to explain why exactly they should get it. And it better be an explanation that still holds water with AI available. They can do the aesthetic math as an art side project like an accountant can paint or sing off the clock. But generally you also don't pay everyone for their hobbies even if those hobbies are nice culturally rich endeavors.
  - gjulianm 21d ago
    > I have read the letter. And you have not understood it. > they don't want the answer key because prestige reasons No, that’s not the reason. They don’t want the answer key because the answer key is useless. > This doesn't consider that many people, like engineers, use math as a tool Of course it considers it. Many people, like engineers, could not care less about the answers to most problems mathematicians work on. They do care about the tools they develop in the process. I’ve already shown examples of this but I’ll do it again: Galois theory was developed when trying to answer whether there are formulas to solve roots of polynomials of degree 5. Fourier analysis was developed when trying to find an analytical solution to the heat equation. Riemann developed his geometry to explore which Euclidean axioms were actually important. None of the direct answers were as important as how they got to them. > Again, they want funding, they have to explain why exactly they should get it. And it better be an explanation that still holds water with AI available. The explanation will be exactly the same. Only it will not be just hard to explain why the problem is important, but also it will be harder to explain that no, just the answer by itself is not useful without the understanding. Just like I am here having a really hard time explaining to someone who doesn’t understand how mathematical research works why “just getting the answer” is not a useful output.