Comment by DudleyBluffles
16 hours ago
Not a great time to be starting sophmore year in cs & math. Should I just say fuck it, and go hitchhiking across Europe with some friends?
16 hours ago
Not a great time to be starting sophmore year in cs & math. Should I just say fuck it, and go hitchhiking across Europe with some friends?
Just don't. If you read the story here carefully, you see that AI was used to work from theory built by others which showed that the Euler equations possesed finite-time blow-ups. But to make that step, actual good understanding for mathematics was needed. My experience with software has been the exact same.
I fear this is only temporary and due mostly to the complexity of the problem. Consider the recent counter-example to the Dinitz–Garg–Goemans conjecture:
> https://chatgpt.com/share/6a60b2eb-0b64-83ee-9c76-7931ca1de0...
The prompts for the chat above are:
> Construct a counterexample to general (non-planar) case of Dinitz Garg Goemans conjecture. You should do a breakthrough and find a structured counterexample.
> [gpt works for a while and then gives up]
> Continue the search. Have a clear strategy obtained from deeper understanding of the problem structure.
> [gpt works for a while then gives up]
> it's enough of partial results. let's finish with a complete unconditional counterexample
> [gpt proves the problem]
I could have written these prompts sophmore year of highschool, if not earlier. True, it took more experienced mathematicians to verify it, but I don't fancy a role as a glorified editor. I want to solve problems! Discover new techniques! Not babysit an AI while eating breakfast.
I think you're misunderstanding what the objective of mathematics is. It is not just about what theorems are true and false, but rather why they are true and false. A highschool sophomore could use these prompts, but I severely doubt whether they'd be able to understand the entire structure. And I think it is exactly this ability to deeply understand structures is what makes a mathematician valuable.
Solving problems is a by-product of the understanding. New techniques are a by-product of the understanding.
But I can understand you're scared that some future version of AI will undermine this as well. I personally pivoted to a field adjacent to mathematics. But that doesn't mean my mathematics education wasn't valuable. To the contrary, I find that it helps me think much more sharply about problems than most of my colleagues.
> Should I just say fuck it, and go hitchhiking across Europe with some friends?
Yes. Assuming you are young and haven't had such experience.
The world is changing not just because of AI. Everything is unstable right now. You may regret not enjoying the remainder of stability and economic viability prior generations had. It's not like you can expect to get ahead by powering through education. Either your career perspective will soon change for the better, or worse. In any case, you gain little by sticking with career building at this moment in life. You are however, at risk of losing the chance to experience the still mostly pleasant world as is.
Have you people gone insane?
Buddy, climate change alone is heavily hitting Europe, changing her landscape. Not to mention economic and political trouble brewing. Not sure where OP is from, but if the US attacks Europe OP may not be able to travel there at all.