> 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
True, but this is also a stunning example of survivorship bias.
Countless other mathematical curiosities were developed in the 1700s -- and forgotten. Calculus just happens to be the one that found practical applications later, so that's the one that's well known today.
It's difficult to draw the conclusion that "every possible branch of learning ought to be funded" by appealing to "later practical value" based on this cherrypicked example.
On the other hand, clearly _some_ novel theoretical work with no apparent immediate value _does_ yield real world benefit later.
Since we lack the resources to fund every PhD with a crazy theory on what the next new subfield ought to be, how do we decide?
Seems like AI could help massively there, by removing a huge bottleneck around technical elaboration and application seeking.
> Seems like AI could help massively there, by removing a huge bottleneck around technical elaboration and application seeking.
Ah yes, lets take the existing system that's already barely holding up and flood it with slop. What could go wrong?
> Since we lack the resources to fund every PhD with a crazy theory on what the next new subfield ought to be, how do we decide?
Do away with the perpetual uncertainty of the "will we or won't we continue to fund you" grant treadmill for practicing academics. Hold a yearly competition of academic prowess and intelligence open to any adult US citizen under retirement age. Award the winners a grant good for 40 years. If we allocated slots equal to 0.005% of the population each year (ie ~17k) that would represent 0.2% (ie 1 per 500) of the population in total at any given time.
Obviously I say that (mostly) in jest but clearly there are workable solutions if we approach things from a new angle instead of determinedly clinging to the status quo.
Not if the billionaire who has been funding the endowment for their university's math department wakss up one morning to read a three sentence Claude summary of this thread, and says "hmm... sounds like what we really need is a ChatGPT moment for math" and decides to redirect his cash to the cutting edge of next gen slop generation tech instead.
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
rdbl27 · · focus · HN ↗
Countless other mathematical curiosities were developed in the 1700s -- and forgotten. Calculus just happens to be the one that found practical applications later, so that's the one that's well known today.
It's difficult to draw the conclusion that "every possible branch of learning ought to be funded" by appealing to "later practical value" based on this cherrypicked example.
On the other hand, clearly _some_ novel theoretical work with no apparent immediate value _does_ yield real world benefit later.
Since we lack the resources to fund every PhD with a crazy theory on what the next new subfield ought to be, how do we decide?
Seems like AI could help massively there, by removing a huge bottleneck around technical elaboration and application seeking.
fc417fc802 · · focus · HN ↗
Ah yes, lets take the existing system that's already barely holding up and flood it with slop. What could go wrong?
> Since we lack the resources to fund every PhD with a crazy theory on what the next new subfield ought to be, how do we decide?
Do away with the perpetual uncertainty of the "will we or won't we continue to fund you" grant treadmill for practicing academics. Hold a yearly competition of academic prowess and intelligence open to any adult US citizen under retirement age. Award the winners a grant good for 40 years. If we allocated slots equal to 0.005% of the population each year (ie ~17k) that would represent 0.2% (ie 1 per 500) of the population in total at any given time.
Obviously I say that (mostly) in jest but clearly there are workable solutions if we approach things from a new angle instead of determinedly clinging to the status quo.
phoghed · · focus · HN ↗
If it’s slop they can just safely ignore it and keep on doing business as usual
qlte · · focus · HN ↗