Tao: Open math problems being non-renewably mined by AI

Posted by _alternator_ 15 hours ago

Tao: Open math problems being non-renewably mined by AI(mathstodon.xyz)

387 points | 340 commentspage 5

esafak 12 hours ago|

It's the same pipeline problem coders have been talking about; once AI does all the work, how are people going to get the experience necessary to take part productively?

gpm 13 hours ago||

See also his previous thread from before the result was published (and before he knew it was coming [1]) on how a to this problem seemed increasingly likely to be solved by AI in a way that caused us to miss the insights that would traditionally be associated with solving it: https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao/117207849921390904

[1] https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao/117219101339291693

gowld 12 hours ago||

There seems to be a sense wher mathematicians are gamifying math, but are frustrated that AI labs are better at gamifying math.

If an AI solves a problem in an unenlightening way, then there's no reason for mathematicians to stop studying it. Pythagoream Theorem has hundreds of different proofs!

If an AI solves a problem in an enlightening way, mathematicians should study it and propose extensions.

kurtis_reed 8 hours ago||

Tao seems to be stuck in a pure-math-for-the-benefit-of-pure-mathematicians mindset. The rest of us care about applications of math, not math itself.

kurtis_reed 10 hours ago||

Plenty of new open problems will come from applications, and applications are what actually matters. Pure mathematicians are wrapped up in math for the sake of math which is a fun academic game but not something the rest of us should care about.

jijji 12 hours ago||

The lack of reasoning traces in frontier model output is hurting science and progress... thats my take away from reading that, and why open source models are so critical and so needed, because they actually do expose the chain-of-thought reasoning traces recently missing from the frontier models (openAI, anthropic, etc). By encrypting and purposely hiding this important information from public inspection, it makes for a world where people lack the true understanding of how a problem gets solved.

ltbarcly3 14 hours ago||

I think he's suffering from a sort of static-universe fallacy. People aren't going to keep doing what they are doing, but secretly.

What is going to happen is a complete revaluation of things like "finding a counter example to a famous problem". Even if someone finds a solution to a problem like this with pencil and paper, nobody will believe it, and they will assume that there was an AI involved.

Further, sitting and doing math with a pencil and paper will no longer be a reasonable strategy to build a reputation or career, beyond the benefit a mathematician gains to their own intuition and skill. People who work hard to build intuition and also use AI effectively will dominate the field.

In a world where everyone is using AI, the open problems that remain will be the ones that are AI resistant. This is no different that how things work now, mathematicians wait until they are fairly confident someone won't rapidly solve their problem before they start talking about it. They will do the same thing in the future, except in the future AI will be part of the toolset they use decide if they are ready to share yet or not.

Edit: Ok I believe I was generally right here, but I just read the details of what OpenAI did. They didn't solve a longstanding problem, they got tipped off to an approach a mathematician was using and would likely result in the solution very soon and they finished it first. If this turns out to be true I think my take above is not correct, in the short term people will have to stop sharing updates because otherwise openai will dishonestly race to finish their work.

dev_dan_2 14 hours ago||

> If this turns out to be true I think my take above is not correct, in the short term people will have to stop sharing updates because otherwise openai will dishonestly race to finish their work.

Which I don't see a reason for Anthropic and "Open"AI not to, given their not so stellar track record with IP of individuals/entities-that-are-not-rich-enough ;)

senordevnyc 12 hours ago||

People who work hard to build intuition and also use AI effectively will dominate the field.

This will be literally every field, sooner or later, at least until the human and their intuition is just slowing the AI down. There’s no scenario where humans without AI beat humans with AI in the long run, unless there are fields where the “alien intelligence” somehow hurts more than it helps (like artistic pursuits perhaps?)

coliveira 12 hours ago||

This to me is another level of dishonesty. Imagine if a company producing math software starts to hear "rumors" someone is using their software to prove an important result and start massive runs of that software to beat the team. That may not be illegal per se but it is incredibly deceitful. I wonder if the original mathematicians should start a lawsuit for theft of intelectual property.

pizzly 12 hours ago|

I would expect this for service providers that provide their "free" services but the mathematicians said they paid OpenAI to help generate this result. This is a clear conflict of interest. Similar to inside trading. Or the same lawyer being hired from two opposing sides which is a big no no. There are rules and laws that already deal with this in other industries and I expect that there will have to be regulation developed for cases where there is a conflict between AI customers and AI provider interest.

dakolli 12 hours ago||

This is just the age of slop mathematics, if it doesnt lead to our lives neing improved none of this matters. Math peeps are being nerd sniped by AI in the same way SWEs (the worst ones) got sniped by claude code. Building solutions to problems that dont matter for the sake of doing it just because you can.

You'll ultimately waste a ton of time and get lapped by people doing real world work that actually improves the lives of regular people.

perching_aix 12 hours ago|

alright, i'll bite: what real work did you put out there that has improved the lives of regular people in the past one year? (without the use of ai, needless to say)

axionbraid 8 hours ago|

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