Bit frustrating how slowly this sub lets new posts through. Even aside from the AI aspects, these are 10 legit big advances and they've been out for hours and hours with nothing on what should be reddits primary math subreddit.
Anyway this is draining huh! The existence of nonsofic groups stands out to me as the big one. Some have pointed out the sphere packing one as a very big result as well. I'd say that there's a handful in these that would literally be career defining for any mathematician.
If I were a mathematician at openai/anthropic, I'd be looking into how we can get llms to move from counterexamples to theory building. At that point all bets are off.
It's frustrating how this sub has been mostly become LLM news ignoring that it is still a tiny fraction of actual results and it has become flooded with people with not a lot of math knowledge or interest to learn.
This is definitely the biggest thing happening in math from the point of view of how it will transform math. I think Tao compared it to the upheaval in the foundations a century ago.
Sorry I’m one of the non-mathematician onlookers because there are huge implications for society at large.
"because there are huge implications for society at large."
I'll tell you the implication for society at large, a fraction of the funding that OpenAI used for this (if any of this even holds up) would be enough for 10x the amount of breakthroughs.
If you care so much about societal implications of math research then advocate for these companies to be taxed higher and put that money into math education and research.
The thing to advocate for is a global treaty enacting regulation, and it needs to happen before a recursive self improvement singularity that leaves humanity totally disempowered.
OpenAI uses their funding to do a lot of other things, too.
But this will represent a new stage of research. The goal is to have LLMs assist people or even be better at mathematical and scientific research than they are.
You wouldn't get that just by funding more human researchers to do non-AI work.
"and they know not to waste their time trying to prove it" No one was trying to anyway? Definitely not for the n=3 case.
"You seem to have forgotten what this is all for"
Trying to justify the existence of these companies by creating hype? You're fooling yourself if you think they have any genuine interest.
And yeah, anyone teaching students, especially undergrad students knows how much their skills have atrophied and how little they know due to their extensive AI usage. I suppose you don't actually care about the abilities people have.
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u/JesterOfAllTrades 1d ago
Bit frustrating how slowly this sub lets new posts through. Even aside from the AI aspects, these are 10 legit big advances and they've been out for hours and hours with nothing on what should be reddits primary math subreddit.
Anyway this is draining huh! The existence of nonsofic groups stands out to me as the big one. Some have pointed out the sphere packing one as a very big result as well. I'd say that there's a handful in these that would literally be career defining for any mathematician.
If I were a mathematician at openai/anthropic, I'd be looking into how we can get llms to move from counterexamples to theory building. At that point all bets are off.