What's the Future for Pure Math Research in the Age of AI?

37 pointsposted 9 hours ago
by 6bitquant
(writings.stephenwolfram.com)

7 Comments

amelius

16 minutes ago

What is a good exit strategy?

veexx103

3 hours ago

Some arguments are based on "past experience..."

However, such experiences are not absolute truths and cannot be equated with the current situation.

lumost

an hour ago

I think the big question is whether these recent gains continue. It’s entirely plausible that the ai firms are going to run out of human trainers capable of further refining the model. It’s also possible we are on the cusp of real superintelligence.

ghusto

an hour ago

The desperately needed TL;DR is that perhaps the actual mathematics itself (i.e. proofs, calculations, etc.) can be done by AI, but why we do it and deciding which problems to solve can only be done by AI. Therefore mathematician do maths.

I'm not a mathematician, but this seems like a weak and slightly bizarre argument.

smitty1e

42 minutes ago

If training data are purely historical, then how does the AI look forward?

And if human mathematicians are drummed out of producing future training data, then can AI end up proving itself so much "eating the seed corn", only at scale?

dfdydx

22 minutes ago

If training data are purely historical, then how does the human look forward?

Seems to me not impossible that given current knowledge, AI generate one nugget more of knowledge (eg a proof of Navier Stokes), and given current knowledge + the nugget, generate yet some more new knowledge.

Not a given, but not obviously impossible either.