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I have trouble understanding how anybody could seriously believe this.

Mathematicians are ecstatic and delighted when major problems are solved by other mathematicians. If you've followed the discussions and read the reactions, you'd know why mathematicians feel differently in this case and why more than a few are upset and feel that they've lost the thing that gave them meaning and joy.

And to put it very simply, I don't want mathematicians to exist just because I want solutions to problems. I want mathematicians to exist because I want to live in a world that has mathematicians, philosophers, writers, painters, thinkers, etc. That is a better world that makes people better.

OpenAI's proofs do not make people better. They do not enrich our lives. And OpenAI was able to produce these proofs because countless generations of human beings sowed the fields of mathematics through countless hours of labor. OpenAI is clear-cutting and sowing them with salt. Nobody should he ecstatic. Everybody should be horrified and outraged.

 help



I would argue that math indeed makes our lives better. Llms themselves are math invention! It doesn't matter much where this math comes from.

I think it's ok to care about math as an art or sport still.

Math will join the ranks of other useful works where human effort was once essential like

Long distance messaging/ running, painting, calligraphy, weight lifting and others.


I think we shouldn't have calculators anymore either. The world was better when we had to calculate everything by hand and a human by hand verified every single addition and subtraction.

Are we supposed to ignore the irony that you typed this on a computer that is millions of times more powerful than the calculators you propose to forfeit?

I'm not sure the world is better if everyone was forced to do TLS handshake math by hand.

The last couple decades of economic development (of the first world at least) was in a large part due to the efficiency gains by not having people do math by hand. The world will definitely not be better if you just blew up all the computing tech since calculators were invented.


I think we should be horrified/outraged that calculators exist and are clear cutting the once viable field of human calculation.

Yes, I am being sarcastic.


I think the comment you answered was ironic/sarcastic.



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