Comment by pfdietz
10 hours ago
> Puts the onus on the AI companies to provide a specific replacement mechanism, no?
Why? If someone makes an innovation that undercuts the underpinnings of some existing institution, why are they are responsible for cleaning up its failure?
Yes it seems odd.
Out sourcing construction jobs was great for the economy while leaving entire cities in rubbles.
But as soon as it hits the privileged class there is a call to "provide a specific replacement mechanism".
You mean manufacturing
Yes
Whose privilege are you sticking up for here in effect?
Math researchers are privileged class? I can guarantee - construction workers are extremely rich compared with math phds and most of postdocs. Talking about privileged class is absolutely laughable here.
I would bet that the parents of math PhDs are generally more privileged than the parents of construction workers.
They’re not asking them to stop working on AI, but to stop publishing mathematics.
In other news, evangelical christians ask scientists to stop publishing about evolution.
We apparently have a moral obligation to protect existing power structures?
Tao should maybe consider there are people who are indifferent to, or actively want to tear down, his institutions; why should they cooperate in preserving them? Whatever happens has to be resilient in the face of defection; any scheme where everyone is expected to agree to not use AI in a way he doesn't like will not qualify.
I think he's in the "bargaining" stage of dealing with loss right now.
You have a practical obligation to obey existing power structures. That’s what makes it a power structure. What do you all think is happening here? There have been people who decided what math gets published for centuries.
> In other news, evangelical christians ask scientists to stop publishing about evolution.
not sure it's comparable, but the issue is that for a lot of those mathematical results, they don't really have utility by themselves. The utility is the new branches/understanding that's being developped.
Exactly. Mathematicians are trying to cope that math wasn't slop this whole time.
Grothendieck was anti-slop but most papers are slop.
I don't think AI is going to rewrite bourbaki anytime soon
With your understanding of mathematical "slop", do you believe that Deligne and Scholze, two signatories, produced or produce mathematical slop?
Grothendieck accused Deligne of "slop" with his proof of the weil conjecture.
Scholze's math is definitely not slop.
But you're taking two of the best mathematicians of the last century against my claim about averages
The entire western world is anti-progress and pro-incumbency, and its very tightly linked to gerontocracy.
Older people are desperately trying to keep a grasp on their current power and lifestyles at the expense of younger people and technology.
We need to ban Waymos because taxi drivers need to be protected.
We need to block housing because it would lower my property values, and eliminate property taxes while we're at it! I don't use the local schools so why should I be taxed to pay for it.
We need to spend recklessly to pay my pension and have the next generation foot the bill.
Its just a repulsive ideology.