Well it's actually nice, maybe more people will be able to do world class math with the help of these tools. There are few fields as elitist and hostile as pure mathematics, most mathematicians I know build their whole life around their profession and their self esteem is strongly coupled to the fact that they can do things that most other people can't. Naturally, many will be devastated when (if) you take that away from them. That said I think AI is still overhyped and human mathematicians can easily outthink it in most domains, look at how difficult it is for an AI to write even a single decent paper, a good PhD student can easily outclass it in that regard. All of these impressive results were generated by having world-class mathematicians steer the systems using highly tuned prompts, so I see it more like a super violin that produces beautiful music when played by master violinists rather than being a fully autonomous orchestra which many people are led to believe this already is.
And maybe let's not only hear the opinion of two or three Fields level mathematicians with blogs, 99 % of the worlds mathematicians in academia might profit from these tools as they might partially close the gap between them and the world elite, making creativity and tenaciousness more important than having the right neocortical structure allowing you to outperform 99.9 % of other humans at keeping context in your head and making predictions, AI can do that better now with the right prompts.
I haven't sampled all mathematicians on the planet and I don't think there's a study on this but I would argue a lot of people will agree with mathematics with being elitist, and from my experience mathematicians aren't very keen of interacting with math "enthusiasts" or the wider community in general, they interact with a very select number of other specialist through a small set of conferences.
Mathematics is by far the most accessible "science" in academia. Anyone can, in theory, produce novel results with nothing more than a pencil and paper. And while the existing literature may not always be readily "accessible" (in the easy-to-understand sense) it is pretty widely available (often online and certainly via any decent academic library).
But "frontier" mathematics is still a highly advanced, highly specialized field. It can take years of study to be prepared to understand the established theory and results for a given subtopic.
These two observations, taken together, lead to the predictable outcome of a lot of math "enthusiasts" with an incomplete understanding of the field loudly asserting that they have discovered a radical new result. Often they lack the foundation to even understand what they are doing wrong.
The reluctance of mathematicians to engage with amateurs that come off as cranks is a symptom of how accessible the field is.
ThePhysicist · · focus · HN ↗
And maybe let's not only hear the opinion of two or three Fields level mathematicians with blogs, 99 % of the worlds mathematicians in academia might profit from these tools as they might partially close the gap between them and the world elite, making creativity and tenaciousness more important than having the right neocortical structure allowing you to outperform 99.9 % of other humans at keeping context in your head and making predictions, AI can do that better now with the right prompts.
srean · · focus · HN ↗
Is that so ? Sounds hyperbolic.
ThePhysicist · · focus · HN ↗
rodw · · focus · HN ↗
But "frontier" mathematics is still a highly advanced, highly specialized field. It can take years of study to be prepared to understand the established theory and results for a given subtopic.
These two observations, taken together, lead to the predictable outcome of a lot of math "enthusiasts" with an incomplete understanding of the field loudly asserting that they have discovered a radical new result. Often they lack the foundation to even understand what they are doing wrong.
The reluctance of mathematicians to engage with amateurs that come off as cranks is a symptom of how accessible the field is.