John Duncan
122 posts
John Duncan
@johnfrduncan
Research Fellow in Mathematics at Academia Sinica, in Taipei, Taiwan. Plant powered, lover of life.
Taipei, Taiwan. Katılım Ağustos 2009
364 Takip Edilen85 Takipçiler
Rather it's the frontier AI labs that are threatening to put almost all of us out of a job. There's a future in which we have amazing AI tools, that are not controlled by corporate interests.
Itai Sher@itaisher
“AI threatening to put almost all mathematicians out of a job” Typical example of substituting what you think will happen for what has actually happened. It’s nonstop with AI.
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Indeed, mathematics should be accessible, to as many people as possible.
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Also, open source, amirite? The tools we build should be accessible, to as many people as possible.
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To working mathematicians who are not optimistic about the future of mathematics: Is there any aspect of what you do now that you can't do better with the help of AI tools?
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@thomasfbloom I expect mathematics, as a human endeavor, to thrive, because the new tools we're developing should enable us to do better mathematics. I don't think we're "there yet" with the tools, but there are promising possible futures.
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There are many here who both believe that soon AI will be superhuman at maths, solving all Millenium problems and beyond, and yet also reject any claims that maths is 'dead', and believe that mathematics will thrive.
I'm curious, for those people, what is maths in that future?
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John Duncan retweetledi
I, for one, I'm telling students it's perhaps the most exciting time to be a mathematician, quite possibly in the history of mathematics. All of a sudden we are given a tool that can help us make huge leaps! How could anyone see this as our profession dying? Embrace it. Learn how to use it, empower yourself, and profit.
Ben Golub@ben_golub
A small number of top mathematicians are telling their students that (due to AI) the profession is imminently dying Meanwhile some dumbass is happily completing the requirements to be a CPA Second guy (IMO) has something figured out that the first is missing
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And I think we still need students: Vertical cooperation is more valuable now than ever, bc you want fresh ideas for how to use (and develop) the new tools, and you want expertise and experience to evaluate the outputs. 3/2 [haha]
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There’s a future in which each mathematician is massively more valuable to society, because we are empowered to do better mathematics, and because we are empowered to communicate it more effectively. 2/2
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I think that, to the extent that we have powerful new tools, we should upscale our ambitions. 1/2
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@wtgowers There’s a future in which each mathematician is massively more valuable to society, because we are empowered to do better mathematics, and because we are empowered to communicate it more effectively.
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Mathematics is a story we tell in order to better understand this world. We still need humans, to direct, develop, and disseminate the story.
Timothy Gowers @wtgowers@wtgowers
I've recently got in on the act of getting AI to solve open problems in mathematics. More precisely, I gave some questions asked by Melvyn Nathanson to ChatGPT 5.5 Pro, to which I have been given access, and it answered them. 🧵
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Generative AI can be a great tool for this.
Also, developing and sharing the story can be *really* fun, independently of the tools you choose.
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