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caaqil • today at 3:45 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

> Without humans who understand mathematics, there is, quite literally, no human mathematics—a fundamental part of human culture. If we agree that we should not abandon mathematics because poorly understood machines bruise our anthropocentric vision of it, then society will need more mathematicians, not fewer. Like… a lot more.

This is just incoherent. Even if we "agree" (we don't but...) not to "abandon" math, how does it follow that "we need a lot more mathematicians" exactly?

Even if you reject the idea that AI can displace the current top quartile/percentile of human mathematicians, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that it will at least displace some parts of math so that there'll be less demand for mathematicians overall, not more? The mental gymnastics are astounding here.


Replies

pfdietz • today at 3:49 PM

Unless AI can do everything involved in math, their greatly accelerated production of certain parts of math should increase the demand for people to do the remaining parts.

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