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lkey6 hours ago | parent | context | favorite | on: "I'm on a war footing": Terry Tao and the crisis i... The social fabric that produces math got ripped up by marketing guys who didn't even bother to check their work. He described it at 'strip mining', 'rude', and said that many grad students, who are given problems like these as a part of their training, had the rug pulled out from under them (because its customary to let people know you are working on something to prevent this kind of thing). And your whole analysis is that Tao is worried about his 'identity', status, and 'being a differentiator'. This is projection on your part. People have values that bear no resemblance to yours and it would behoove you to learn to recognize that. help 
analog315 hours ago | next[–] The rug being pulled is the expectation of a reasonably high-trust ethical environment. The question to be asked is: What will graduate study look like in an utterly zero trust ethical environment? reply jacquesm2 hours ago | parent | next[–] If there is still such a thing as graduate study. If there is still such a thing as study. Tell me what to say to someone about to enter college about why it isn't a waste of their time. reply nradov9 minutes ago | root | parent | next[–] Most colleges, even before LLMs, were already a waste of time for most students. I mean they were somewhat effective for networking and economic signaling to employers but they had already lost the plot in terms of real value to society. And now with LLMs the entire education system will need to be rebuilt. Let's get to work. reply derpyzza34 minutes ago | root | parent | prev | next[–] yeah, let's all be stupid together reply wyager3 hours ago | prev | next[–] > He described it at 'strip mining' Strip mining what, platonic reality? Mathematicians don't have a monopoly on mathematical truth. It doesn't exist for their benefit. reply fwlr3 hours ago | parent | next[–] It is usually not the monopolist who is protesting against strip mining, it is usually the monopolist doing the strip mining and the environmentalist protesting it. Which is to say, I don’t think mathematicians are claiming a monopoly on mathematics, but I think AI might. reply somesortofthing3 hours ago | parent | prev | next[–] Strip mining interesting conjectures. AI can answer interesting(pedagogically valuable, carrying important implications, etc.) mathematical questions in formally correct gibberish far faster than mathematicians can generate them. Until AI can replace the conjectures it resolves on its own, it's consuming a finite resource. reply spoaceman77773 hours ago | root | parent | next[–] Will AI be unable to produce new conjectures? reply somesortofthing1 hour ago | root | parent | next[–] It can't consistently produce new, interesting-to-humans conjectures faster than it solves open problems, no. AI-generated natural-language proofs are more or less human-unreadable and are solely concerned with the process of constructing whatever object serves as the counterexample. Natural-language counterparts of formally verified proofs are often unfaithful to the formal component. All of this combines to create less-than-fertile ground for future study. reply intended2 hours ago | root | parent | prev | next[–] The papers created by AI on math, right now, are torturous reads. Figuring out what is actually going on in them, is the work of months or even years. I’ve seen multiple conference submissions that read like English, but take hours of effort to disentangle and figure out what they mean. There is a limited number of known interesting problems that are worthwhile to engage in. New ones are found and understood, but it is a slow process and it is dependent on understanding and verification, not generation of content. Saying AI will create new ones, strengthens the strip mining analogy. The idea that AI will find other problems parallels the idea that firms can cut down a forest and plant them elsewhere. The conversation on HN is driven by non mathematicians, to whom math is a subject, like “nature”. It’s not their core business. The original post by Tao is a better source of information on what he means. reply slow_typist3 hours ago | root | parent | prev | next[–] Does creativity need sentience? reply neerajsi2 hours ago | root | parent | next[–] No. Genetic diversity and natural selection have created many intricate, beautiful, and useful structures. Unless someone is willing to argue that Darwinian selection is sentient, it's clear that theres at least one non sentient process that is creative. reply SpicyLemonZest3 hours ago | parent | prev | next[–] It doesn’t exist for OpenAI’s benefit either. The point of the “strip mining” analogy is that they are churning through the mathematical landscape in a way that optimizes for the number of problems solved rather than the amount of understanding of those problems. reply SturgeonsLaw5 hours ago | prev[–] Well they've been doing that to devs for a couple of years now and yet mathematicians seem to be much more vocal whingers (might be selection bias in the articles I'm reading though). AI is coming for all of us knowledge workers, nobody is immune. reply jimbokun5 hours ago | parent[–] Um…us devs have been whinging with the best of them thank you very much. reply
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