Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by QuantumNoodle 8 days ago
Sorry did you read the article or just the headline? The theme is mathematics is a human-endevor and automation undermines that, particularly the ones starting out. It risks killing the culture entirely. Some other key points:

- AI-generated papers could overwhelm peer-review systems with low-quality work.

- It may become difficult to assign proper credit for discoveries.

- Researchers who choose not to use AI tools could be disadvantaged.

- There are ethical concerns about mathematical work being used to train AI for military and surveillance purposes.

3 comments

>mathematics is a human-endevor

Just like numbers and logic, it isn't and never was reserved only for humans.

They need to adapt.

Idk man creativity is something pretty human. insufferable people are very fine if, for example, music & art is outsourced to AI so they can make a some $$. But those things are meant to be enjoyed, not consumed.
This fact is no longer true. The mathematic domains are up for grabs by anything that can conquer it: https://openai.com/index/model-disproves-discrete-geometry-c...
I don't see how this is different than things replaced decades ago:

Music is a human endeavor and musical recordings hurt musicians, bands, orchestras, etc. Especially those starting out.

This feels like a troll comment, but I'll bite.

Mathematics requires substantial creativity at every level. There is problem selection, conjecture formation, proof strategies, definitions, models, and explanations. Yes, it's constrained and guided by logic and rigor but having logic won't give you creativity.

> Music is a human endeavor and musical recordings hurt musicians, bands, orchestras, etc. Especially those starting out.

The medium it is recorded on has no bearing on what composed the music. If people don't get rewarded for composing they won't. Same with mathematics. If people don't get paid for being creative they just won't be creative.

I am not saying I agree with everything in the article. OP of this thread just made a low effort comment that was addressed in lengths during the article.

I should be able to have a different opinion without being a troll.

My point is to say many things have been replaced by technology over the years, but people do them as hobbies.

Mathematics is not inherently a human endeavor and claims such as those are why the GOP voters are fine with cutting research funding so heavily. Even if you think it's true you probably shouldnt write think pieces that say so because it's bad politics.