Second order effects, that rational types fail to grasp

Gamedevs can make better games with AI! Yet the creatives don't get into gamedev if they didn't have to spend any effort to make their art

Mathematicians can advance mathematics with AI! Yet mathematicians don't get into mathematics because they want to "advance" mathematics

Teachers can teach better with AI, writers can write better with AI.. Can they?

Can't you people understand romance and the beauty of the human endeavor

> It's the bedrock of all other science. The goal is to find solutions and to advance the field…

That may be true but that may not be the feature that attracts people to the field.

> As we solve lower level problems, we can unlock real world math solutions.

That is an argument often made for funding mathematics research. But again it may not be the thing that attracted people to the field.

Note I don’t share all the doom and gloom of some folks in the math community but it is a valid point that people who might otherwise have gone into the field may choose not to anymore.

Also, math research has typically focused a large amount of energy abstracting and generalizing results. Your suggestion about solving real problems usually moves in the other direction. If the powers that be with all the money decide AI can solve all the real problems that exist (rightly or wrongly) then mathematics research community will have a problem.

I think "fun" and "meaningless" are important parts of math. There is applied math for sole utility. Other math is just random search that may or may not be useful in long term. But later people/AI will find important use cases from these short-term "meaningless" researches.

Let me help you by breaking down your point.

> The goal is to find solutions

> and to advance the field

Nobody seems to be disputing LLMs help with the former, but some are concerned that the latter is jeopardized by having aliens do our homework.

> It's the bedrock of all other science.

no, its just a language. physics constrains 1+1. "one plus one equals two" is difficult to transform

Terry Tao is a child prodigy who's entire life has been 'you are so good at math' is it a surprise it's a bit reality shattering to him to find an AI can write proofs better than most humans?

This seems obvious in current year, but extrapolating it I wonder where it takes us.

If society isn't there to keep us safe, free, and happy - what's the point? Accumulating lean certificates and energy production capacity?

It's both. Some math has applications. Some math doesn't. Many mathematicians are interested in mathematical beauty, in solving problems, and playing with puzzles.

None of the results from October 6, as far as I know, have direct real-world applications today. We can't go build a better thing, or make a faster thing, etc. I might be missing something (I'm not an expert in any of the fields). I don't think most folks would have a problem with solving a bottleneck problem that let us flux a capacitor at 2x efficiency, or whatever.

I also think this is hard for a lot of folks who are in fields that heavily apply math to come to terms with. I do not think that programming and practicing mathematics are the same: many (most?) mathematicians are closer to a composer than a programmer: all three are making things, but there is much more emphasis on elegance and cleverness in mathematics than in programming.

But again, it's not binary, and a lot of the discussion does try to take a black-or-white view of it. It's tradeoffs all the way down.

For what it's worth, I think this quote from the article sums up my position best:

"To me, someone who chooses a worthwhile problem, obtains a proof completely using AI, understands it thoroughly, and uses it to develop interesting further questions or directions has made a substantial mathematical contribution. I would give that person substantial credit even if they supplied no new ingredient in the original proof. Choosing worthwhile problems may end up mattering more than producing proofs."