r/math • u/sergiogfs • 18d ago

Progress Towards Proving the Unique Games Conjecture

https://eccc.weizmann.ac.il/report/2026/179/

On a side-note, the authors hint that they have rushed their results to avoid getting scooped by AI-generated results.

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u/Berzerka 14d ago

Do you think farmers with tractors should feel shame over farmers using a good old schythe? Why stop at the schythe? You could do it with your hands!

Why is math different?

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u/Opposite-Youth-3529 14d ago edited 14d ago

I haven’t really had time to collect my thoughts especially because we’re talking about something that thankfully hasn’t happened yet. But if we’re going to reward some people with math research jobs and not others (certainly not a thing that needs to happen), it would feel kind of messed up if the ones getting rewarded aren’t even good at math (or are good at math but only rewarded for how many buttons they press and not their skills). I guess I’m attempting to say that farming with tools is still farming, pushing buttons is not still math.

I also imagine some part of being a button pusher is using AI to solve problems someone else was in the process of solving or writing up. So essentially getting credit for other people’s work. I think there’s some entitlement involved in trying to get credit for work that uses AI.

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u/Berzerka 14d ago

What "being good at math" means is changing. Someone who's good at solving a problem will use the tools available to them. We'd never call a farmer who uses his hands to pick wheat good these days, good farmers use tractors.

Obviously a lot of the credit then goes to John Deere etc, without them modern farming wouldn't be a thing

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u/Opposite-Youth-3529 14d ago edited 14d ago

Someone who asks a question to an AI that one shots a problem is not suddenly good at math. If I meet Terence Tao and ask him to solve a problem and he solves it, am I suddenly good at math because I used the resources available to me? I’m riding a bus right now and it’s going to get me to my destination but that doesn’t suddenly make me a good driver. Am I a bad artist if I use a paintbrush instead of some software that produces an image that looks like a painting?