> 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.
>why mathematicians should widely receive funding for merely understanding things
imagine yourself living in the 1700s. how would you justify Newton and Leibniz's work on calculus?
all maritime engineering and trade was done with geometry and arithmetic at the time. there were no practical applications, not for likely at least a century until hydrodynamics were incorporated into shipbuilding
now look at today. how many of our modern technologies rely on the field having been birthed? that could only exist because of even further decades-worth of antecedent refinements, extrapolations, applications that had, at their time, no direct utilitarian cause?
there's no KPI to be derived from any academic field of study at the bleeding edge of theory. theoretical underpinnings lead to practical applications much further down the line after many paradigm shifts
semiotics and cultural capital as theoretical concepts is another example - at the time they were purely seen as navel-gazey literary theory work. these days, half a century later, they're in wide use (for better or worse) in marketing and advertising - they birthed the whole concept of 'branding'
not everything needs immediate, quantifiable justification. to believe it does indicates a need for a period of self-reflection, to figure out how and when you became so heavily influenced by the MBA-brained propaganda that the world should revolve around the quarter-by-quarter creation of capital
1. Those early discoveries were much closer to today’s applied mathematics (which many of the pure math academic types sneer at FWIW), and 2. They made those discoveries without public funding.
If AI can bring forth mathematical discoveries much faster than academics, wouldn’t it behove society to use AI? It seems the me the tradeoff here is the benefit of all vs the ego of a few. I empathize with the struggle many math PhDs must be going through, and maybe I don’t fully understand the tradeoff as they see it, but I’m not convinced by the letter written by a few career, tenured academics.
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.
paimapi · · focus · HN ↗
imagine yourself living in the 1700s. how would you justify Newton and Leibniz's work on calculus?
all maritime engineering and trade was done with geometry and arithmetic at the time. there were no practical applications, not for likely at least a century until hydrodynamics were incorporated into shipbuilding
now look at today. how many of our modern technologies rely on the field having been birthed? that could only exist because of even further decades-worth of antecedent refinements, extrapolations, applications that had, at their time, no direct utilitarian cause?
there's no KPI to be derived from any academic field of study at the bleeding edge of theory. theoretical underpinnings lead to practical applications much further down the line after many paradigm shifts
semiotics and cultural capital as theoretical concepts is another example - at the time they were purely seen as navel-gazey literary theory work. these days, half a century later, they're in wide use (for better or worse) in marketing and advertising - they birthed the whole concept of 'branding'
not everything needs immediate, quantifiable justification. to believe it does indicates a need for a period of self-reflection, to figure out how and when you became so heavily influenced by the MBA-brained propaganda that the world should revolve around the quarter-by-quarter creation of capital
jwilber · · focus · HN ↗
If AI can bring forth mathematical discoveries much faster than academics, wouldn’t it behove society to use AI? It seems the me the tradeoff here is the benefit of all vs the ego of a few. I empathize with the struggle many math PhDs must be going through, and maybe I don’t fully understand the tradeoff as they see it, but I’m not convinced by the letter written by a few career, tenured academics.