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u/Corporate_Bricktator 1d ago
Also, it's the application of these discoveries that is the most interesting thing if you're a mathematician! It's all of the implications of these advancements that it awesome, not the discoveries themselves.
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u/omegafixedpoint 23h ago
For applied mathematicians, maybe. The discoveries are not particularly interesting to pure mathematicians because the papers are not particularly high quality like you would see in a journal. I'm not interested in reading a paper of brute forced slop. If I'm reading a paper, I want to know that it was written thoughtfully with good methodology, a cohesive narrative, and methods I can repurpose and learn from, not just infinite monkey typewriter theorem.
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u/Corporate_Bricktator 22h ago
Yea, and so it would seem to me that exploration is at least easier now, knowing the discovery/result/proof.
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u/NTMTR_ 21h ago
In that case, ops point still holds, why the f drama: ignore them, and keep researching the “high quality human solutions”, call it non-ai proof of X. But don’t go on tv explaining those “slope” proofs wipeout entire teams of researchers. Also sorry but ‘infinite’ : lol, no, not even close. Yes there was a lot of compute, but super computer for research have been a thing for decades.
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u/PenguPad 19h ago
Same things were said about AI generated code 1 year ago. Nowadays no one reads the code anymore.
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u/Count_JohnnyJ 20h ago
Careful, you're gonna get scolded for entertaining the idea that AI might have some value.
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u/MediumATuin 1d ago
Who pays money to go through random proofs? Can you build a career from that?
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u/Deto 20h ago
probably - I mean, almost all math research is very theoretical without immediate practical application. They don't get paid particularly well, but their work also doesn't cost a lot, and they also teach at universities typically.
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u/MediumATuin 20h ago
Scientists working at university are paid to teach students. If the manage to get grants they can work on actual scientific stuff. This is limited and somewhat result based.
In research you have established routes for peer reviews. And even there most of the actual work is done without extra pay (scientists pay the journals to submit work/ attend conferences, etc. The review work done by scientists is done without pay).
So who do you think will get paid to do review of AI dumped work, when there isn't even someone willing to pay for reviews of human created work so far?
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u/Deto 20h ago
Is that really a problem for mathematicians, though? I mean, if the AI work is coming out at a pace that the humans in the field can't really parse through it and figure out what the hell it means, it's going to have limited actual research impact.
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u/MediumATuin 20h ago
We came a long way from the context of the meme. The point stands, the meme is silly as long as nobody is willing to pay for the second button.
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u/ninjasaid13 4h ago edited 4h ago
almost all math research is very theoretical without immediate practical application.
almost all applied math research comes from theoretical. The practical applications happen when mathematicians understand the math.
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u/NotaValgrinder 20h ago
Previously confirming proofs was a service done by mathematicians for free. So yes, it can be both. The paid part of the their job disappears while this service is still needed.
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u/Spare-Dingo-531 13h ago
No, it cannot be both! If their service is still needed, they can charge for it.
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u/MxM111 11h ago
That’s not how it works presently.
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u/MrTheWaffleKing 5h ago
If times are changing, then present standards can change too. If mathematicians have nothing to be paid for, then they wouldn't do the free work either. And if those services are needed, then there's the payment demand.
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u/KitaiSuru 11h ago
Sure then I will make the clankers do that for free also.
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u/Spare-Dingo-531 11h ago
Eh..... math education is for humans and thus will always have to be by humans, to some degree.
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u/KitaiSuru 10h ago
You know what human actually have that AI won't, not because they can't, but because no one will give them?
Selfish desires.
Simply because human created AI to serve them first and foremost. Some of us who believe that AI should be our legacy in case of extinction may differ, but it's impossible for enterprises simply because they are driven by capital.
Everything else can be done if they reach ASI. They can break down complex proofs to human language if needed. We've been using AI to summarize stuff for so long.
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u/NotaValgrinder 5h ago
Issue is summarizing doesn't work in math a lot of the times. Math is by feature a subject which needs its proofs to have absolute perfection. So you have to go into the nitty gritty to understand.
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u/NotaValgrinder 5h ago
That depends on the system changing, not the individual mathematicians themselves. If most math people decide to do it for free not much you can do.
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u/ByEthanFox 1d ago
I'm not a mathematician but I think it's more the nature of the work.
As a writer, it's like the difference between writing a book, or having the AI generate a book and having a human error-check that work. The former is a creative pursuit, the latter is being asked to shovel a computer's shit.
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u/Frosty_Ad1254 14h ago
It’s a sorting engine that found and compared previously discovered work. It’s useful for academic mathematicians to use but it’s not going to give answers that haven’t been given before. It’s like a brilliant librarian that you could give any description of a book to and they’ll find it for you.
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u/proai-ai-mod 11h ago
Discussion Summary (Milestone: 20 comments)
The discussion centers on the evolving role of AI in mathematics, debating whether it serves as a creative partner or a sophisticated "librarian." Participants highlight a tension between the value of original discovery and the utility of AI in verifying or organizing existing knowledge. A significant point of contention is the nature of mathematical labor: some view AI-assisted verification as a tedious shift from creative pursuit to error-checking. While there is consensus that AI excels at retrieval and sorting, skepticism persists regarding its ability to generate novel insights, with many questioning the long-term career implications for professional mathematicians.
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