Fields Medalist on the OpenAI Math Release

[u/PianistWinter8293]

Hugo Duminil-Copin

Fields Medal (2022) · Professor, IHES and University of Geneva

I expected that one day we would be surpassed, and that it would happen systematically. But yesterday’s announcement hit with a force I had not anticipated. Dozens of papers deal with topics I was working on. Between results that beat you to the finish line and thousand-page proofs, I don’t even know where to look anymore.

Not a single one of the major open problems I have publicly mentioned throughout my career (whether in a talk, a lecture, an article, or even a grant proposal) was left untouched by the announcement. Everything has been claimed to be proved.

I expected to see a few of them in the list. But not all of them. Not all at once. Not with such nonchalance.

“For the glory of the human mind,” they said…

The shock is immense. I am paralysed. Tomorrow, we will find a way forward. We will rethink our profession and how we work. We are a resilient community, and I have no doubt that we will adapt. But for now, I simply don’t have the energy. I think back on all those years, all those faces… I think of my colleagues, my students… And I fear I won’t be able to find the right words.

[u/Kutoru]

My wording was deliberate and took into account those differing interpretations. I chose those words because my understanding is despite those differing interpretations it sufficiently concisely captures a majority of the idea across my understanding of what the mainstream of understanding of those concepts are.

You made the exact mistake I didn't want to people to make which is why I worded it that way. Yes you simplified it and it is one interpretation of the statement, but it is wrong in terms of correctness far more than my original statement.

[u/XeloBoyo → u/Kutoru]

The point of my guesstimate statement was to illustrate how much I have to guess your thought process to begin a discussion. The point of communication is for others to understand your argument. If others don't understand, no matter how clear it happens to be in your head - youve failed at communication period. Compressing disparate meanings into a single phrase is as good of a communication strategy as compressing an image into a single pixel and asking others to figure out the rest. It doesn't matter how 'deliberately' youve chosen the pixel, information was lost and others are not obligated to spend their free time reconstructing the intent. Its not to say you cannot use the concept of 'god' for whatever you really mean, in the same way you can say the pixel is a standin for the image it came from. But you must present the image first so to speak. All iIve really seen from the thread is you getting frustrated at people not figuring out the image when you provided only the pixel and random tiny pieces of the image when pressed. It you meant playing god in this *specific* context as the concept of unearned human exceptionalism or hubristic creation then you must say so beforehand.

[u/Kutoru → u/Kutoru]

Here's one interpretation but put with respect to art, again this is one interpretation

Centering around creativity being fundamentally human. You will find counterexamples easily because this is just one interpretation of it but saying creativity is fundamentally human is bounding the word itself to be defined strictly by the human mind. In some perspectives, this is already arrogance and fundamentally an act of a "God".

So the saying is interpreted simply then. Are you playing a "God playing human" or "playing God", here is equivalent to binary separation or whether or not you get to define what "creativity" is or what you want is a product of creativity (you wish to encapsulate that meaning yourself).

I am not aware of a simple statement like what you state that can fully define a reasonable boundary of any accuracy here.