Comment by clintonc

I agree with many of the sentiments here. But an open letter signed exclusively by Fields Medalists that purport to define precisely what the "mathematical community" (who is inside and outside) and what their goals are raises my hackles for some reason.

It is true that the manufacturing of "true/false" statements is not the same as gaining understanding of a problem. However, for many mathematicians, true/false statements are already manufactured by others. Think of a student who is given a conjecture to investigate, with their advisor describing it as "it must be true". Most exercises in a textbook are stated such that the outcome is known before you begin. That's not really a problem -- investigating the conjecture/exercise yields its own dividends, whether or not the outcome is known. It is also the case that defining new directions involve understanding and synthesizing related problems, asking the right questions, and deciding upon the right directions, and it's not clear that AI can do that at all.

The real risk, I think, its the public's (and funding agencies') perception of the importance of "human" mathematics, but that's already a struggle. For example, it's tough to explain to the lay person why it's still important to research group theory -- the main example people cite is RSA encryption, which was invented almost 50 years ago.