Terence Tao and 24 Fields Medalists Publish Open Letter in Defense of Mathematics in the AI Era
Prominent mathematicians, including Terence Tao, express concern about the impact of artificial intelligence on the development of mathematics. They urge immediate action to address these issues, as society will face similar challenges in other areas of intellectual labor.
Terence Tao and 24 Fields Medalists Publish Open Letter in Defense of Mathematics in the AI Era
The authors argue that the goals of AI companies and the goals of the mathematical community have diverged significantly, and the race for solutions to open problems may not only fail to advance science but could also harm it.
The problem, mathematicians say, is that problems are solved as benchmarks, but obtaining a final answer is not the main goal in mathematics.
In the past, when people solved major open problems, it meant the birth of new ideas, methods, and benchmarks. The mathematical community spent years integrating these ideas into the canon to pass them on to new generations of scholars.
AI solutions are announced even without proper formatting, without highlighting new methods, without references to previous work, etc. Thus, they mean almost nothing on their own and will never become truly alive and useful to the community without human mathematicians.
Mathematicians call for this problem to be addressed urgently, as society will face similar issues in many other forms of intellectual labor.
Why it matters
AnalysisThis letter emphasizes the importance of preserving traditional mathematical methods in the age of artificial intelligence. It calls for a discussion on how AI may impact the future development of science.
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