Ask HN: AI and Math

2 pointsposted 5 hours ago
by ekm2

Item id: 49660811

3 Comments

kva

4 hours ago

The AI industry is monofocused on difficulty over utility. The NS problem is hard, but it is also useful if solved in a way that it illuminates a lot of areas of math, gives us new techniques etc.

Brute forcing a counter solve has not really changed the game as much.

idontwantthis

5 hours ago

Who would that be for? If AI comes up with problems that humans don’t understand and solves them, what does anyone gain?

atleastoptimal

4 hours ago

Knowing whether something or true or isn't true is useful for other lines of inquiry, often practical. For example, a lot could be gained by determining whether P = NP.

Also an initial, cumbersome, complex proof is the first step to a more understandable, formalized proof. AI created a formal proof of Fermat's last theorem. I'm sure the initial proof was not comprehensible to all but a small subset of mathematicians anyway.