OpenAI's AI Solved a Millennium Prize Problem, and a Math Professor Is Reeling
A Mathematician Reads the AI Future
Cornell mathematician Steven Strogatz describes his months of disorientation since May, when AI came for his field. In early September, OpenAI claimed an internal model had unleashed roughly 10,000 agents that ran 88 hours straight to crack the Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize problem. He argues mathematics is as much an expression of the human spirit as music or literature — and asks whether it now belongs to the machines.
I am a math professor, and my field is in crisis. Nobody in math is ever going to forget the year 2026.
- GlibMonkeyDeath
I guess as a physicist I am more hopeful - every revolution in how the world is understood (by humans) has been driven by new tools and data. Being able to measure single quanta, for instance, showed us just how weird and counter-intuitive the Universe can be. I think AI might do something similar for mathematics - make connections that a human brain might have missed, and so advance human knowledge.
But I totally get the anxiety - it's a real John Henry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_(folklore)) moment for the mathematics field. Clearly this is going to restructure how mathematicians are going to be trained and how they work.
- award_
- amelius
Hopefully we can put this aside quickly and move on to using AI to solve great scientific/philosophical problems such as the theory of everything and the hard problem of consciousness.
- abetusk
> But for many “pure” mathematicians ... machines can discover the truths we’re seeking, at the cost of robbing us of the struggle and joy of discovering them ourselves.
This sentiment is akin to wanting to curse humanity to darkness because they're not the one carrying the candle. Strogatz is not lamenting the loss of discovery, he's lamenting the loss of being heralded as a hero for the discovery.
Nothing prevents him or others discovering truths for themselves. Turn off the computer and try to re-derive it from first principles. Have at it! This is what students do in many courses anyway.
I've found little so depressing as being at the precipice of a renaissance of science and mathematical discovery, only to see how resistant the scientists and mathematicians are to it. It lays bare their counterarguments. Any pretense of wanting to discovery fundamental truth about reality is supplanted with "but what about our careers!?". Strogatz, and others like him, should be ashamed of themselves.
- cuttothechase
The thing that is so confusing about this is the following fact -
Lets say the frontier of some specific problem or a field in math is at x. X was reached over millenia by incremental steps and sometimes to leaps and jumps.
Now if AI gives us a x + 1 or x + 10 state, aren't there still x + infinite steps to climb? Many of this the AI can never imagine and won't reach by itself without human assist.
Yes, there is a temporary shock and awe because of all the low hanging x + 1 through x+ 1000 fruits for a given sub-domain/problem have been carpet bombed or whatever.. but isn't it turtles all the way!? Won't people soon find something more to develop and solve that takes it further than where it was of this infinite realm of exploration?