‹ BackHN Continuity

Thread

Why do we need human mathematicians anymore?

293 points · 384 comments · auggierose

  1. ThePhysicist · · focus · HN ↗
    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.

    1. srean · · focus · HN ↗
      > There are few fields as elitist and hostile as pure mathematics

      Is that so ? Sounds hyperbolic.

      1. ThePhysicist · · focus · HN ↗
        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.
        1. srean · · focus · HN ↗
          This is true of professionals in any specialized and difficult to acquire skill to be world class.

          I haven't had any interaction with mathematicians that I would describe as hostile.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.