alt Hacker News"Logistical component A is constrained by abstract concept B." am I being a dick, or is this not extremely interesting to read? TBF I've probably over-consumed this particular category of argument recently.
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As someone who has read 20-30 takes on this topic, and talked about it endlessly for the last 2+ weeks, It's an epically interesting read for me (a non-mathematician) - just introducing me to the topic "Mathematization" was sufficient to make the entire article interesting. (I also learned about a new mathematician - Grothendieck).
The article was interesting enough that I spent about an hour reading excerpts and discussing in detail all of it's nuance at the breakfast table this morning. Strongly encourage a detailed read - it was great.
I'm a research mathematician.
By all means, please read the article if it's interesting to you and ignore it if it isn't. But I believe that it's mostly directed to those already within the research math community, with a far more important purpose than to be interesting.
As the post itself explains, we (research mathematicians, as a profession) need to coordinate on deciding what a bright future will look like in a world with powerful AI, and in plotting a course to get there. And we need to do it fast, or circumstances might decide for us.
Historically, we've rather sucked at coordination. We need leadership -- we need someone to step forward, and begin by floating ideas and getting the conversation rolling. Personally I am very grateful for what Tao is doing here.