> we urgently need to come up with good ways of explaining the value of having a large pool of human mathematical experts, even if it is no longer part of their role to find new proofs of theorems.
This is the main issue, and while I fully agree with that value sentiment, the Fields medallists’ letter failed to provide convincing arguments for why mathematicians should widely receive funding for merely understanding things, and how competition for postdoc and tenure positions would work under these circumstances.
Different academic disciplines are very different, and most don't engage in the same kind of black-and-white problem solving that mathematicians do, where you either have solved a problem or you haven't.
But all insist that you engage in some sort of outwardly visible production in your field: books, articles, conference presentations, public lectures, exhibitions, performances, something.
We haven't yet figured out what that should be, but I presume that everyone would agree that this should continue. As one possible model, check out this blog post of Terry Tao's, where he gives his own perspective on the recently proved Jacobian conjecture.
When computers can solve the underlying actual problem, this sort of work seems likely to rise in value, and be something which a greater number of mathematicians engage in.
*"The Evolution of Human Science"* (originally published in Nature in 2000 as "Catching Crumbs from the Table"), collected in Stories of Your Life and Others.
It's a very short piece written as a journal editorial. Metahumans have advanced so far beyond human comprehension that they do all the original science, communicating via digital neural transfer that humans can't access. Human scientists are left doing hermeneutics: interpreting metahuman publications and reverse-engineering their artifacts, trying to decode work they couldn't have produced themselves. The editorial asks whether human science still has a point, and lands on a modestly hopeful note: interpretation is still a legitimate form of inquiry, and understanding metahuman work still expands human knowledge even if it isn't original discovery.
It reads rather differently now than it did in 2000.
layer8 · · focus · HN ↗
This is the main issue, and while I fully agree with that value sentiment, the Fields medallists’ letter failed to provide convincing arguments for why mathematicians should widely receive funding for merely understanding things, and how competition for postdoc and tenure positions would work under these circumstances.
impendia · · focus · HN ↗
Different academic disciplines are very different, and most don't engage in the same kind of black-and-white problem solving that mathematicians do, where you either have solved a problem or you haven't.
But all insist that you engage in some sort of outwardly visible production in your field: books, articles, conference presentations, public lectures, exhibitions, performances, something.
We haven't yet figured out what that should be, but I presume that everyone would agree that this should continue. As one possible model, check out this blog post of Terry Tao's, where he gives his own perspective on the recently proved Jacobian conjecture.
<a href="https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/07/21/a-digestion-of-the-jacobian-conjecture-counterexample/" rel="nofollow">https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/07/21/a-digestion-of-the...
When computers can solve the underlying actual problem, this sort of work seems likely to rise in value, and be something which a greater number of mathematicians engage in.
conmod278 · · focus · HN ↗
It's a very short piece written as a journal editorial. Metahumans have advanced so far beyond human comprehension that they do all the original science, communicating via digital neural transfer that humans can't access. Human scientists are left doing hermeneutics: interpreting metahuman publications and reverse-engineering their artifacts, trying to decode work they couldn't have produced themselves. The editorial asks whether human science still has a point, and lands on a modestly hopeful note: interpretation is still a legitimate form of inquiry, and understanding metahuman work still expands human knowledge even if it isn't original discovery.
It reads rather differently now than it did in 2000.