Thread

1. sweezyjeezy · 1789808125 · focus · HN ↗

   The math field is confronting something that coders have been dealing with for a few years now, only far more violently. Today's moat for software seems to be that AI can automate tasks but not a full job (yet). But for a large proportion of mathematicians, doing these tasks really was _the_ job. It's the bit they wanted to do, and if they completed a sufficiently difficult set of tasks, they got tenure. Now this model is failing, they frantically need to pivot the role of humans to save their profession from funding cuts.

   I remember when "writing code was never the point" became a mantra here. There was truth in it, but removing the coding has certainly taken away a lot of the texture of the work and enjoyment of the craft. Many of us feel this loss as we tech-lead teams of agents as our source of income. I am not optimistic the mathematics pivot is going to work, but I'm certain that most will be depressed with the outcome even if they succeed.

   We are all staring at the same existential dread, just seeing it unfold slower. We're being told that utopia is to be obsolete, and that is a jarring idea to contend with.

   1. ipnon · 1789826657 · focus · HN ↗

      I feel that you can see quite strongly the truth in “writing code was never the point” when you encounter inevitably at every company the guy who has been around forever but doesn’t seem to be working particularly hard. Their value is (was) no longer in writing code at a furious pace all day. It was having a coherent, intelligible and communicable theory of the software system the company is founded on.

      I propose this thought experiment: put all living mathematicians in a very long bus. This bus crashes and they all tragically lose their lives. Can we really say mathematics simply marches onwards with AI alone? Let’s say Anthropic needs a new research result to improve Claude. Are we really already at the point where we burn tokens ad infinitum and arrive at the end of scientific progress in some timely fashion?

      1. sweezyjeezy · 1789834371 · focus · HN ↗

         I actually have a rather dim view of the "writing code was never the point" line. Not because it's objectively wrong, but because I see it as something we're mostly telling ourselves to feel better about the status quo. Ability to write good code has been highly celebrated (and remunerated) for decades. As it is becoming less relevant, we immediately backtrack and start lionizing the parts where we can still be useful instead. Consider the counterfactual - AI continued to be terrible at writing code, but weirdly better at humans at product decisions, architecture etc. In this universe, saying "coding was never the point" would not be popular.

         It also find little solace in it aside from 'well this version of GPT isn't taking your job'. AI labs certainly have no intention for the higher level skills to stay in the human-only domain. The veteran developer with the coherent theory of a large stack is immensely valuable today. But they also don't survive if a company can drop a few coders' salaries on rewriting that stack from scratch - faster, fewer bugs, more coherent, able to react to changing business requirements with more agility etc. I am not saying this is where we are, but I think there is a reasonably good chance this is where our road is leading us.

         1. GMoromisato · 1789883124 · focus · HN ↗

            The counterfactual does not sound appealing in the least. That's basically, AI tells human coders what to do, tells us to re-do our architecture when they don't like it, and generally removes all control and initiative from us. But we get to write a for-loop by ourselves? That's our victory?

            Maybe it's just me, but imagining that counterfactual reinforces that "writing code was never the point." At least, for me, I enjoyed writing code because it allowed me to design the architecture rather than having some architect lead or engineering manager above me decide.

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