Comment by bcatanzaro
1 day ago
“I think at the heart of this issue is that humans have two competing natures: a tendency to compete and a capacity to appreciate beauty,” said Kai Shaikh, a graduate student in mathematics at the University of Toronto. “To me this seems to be a case of the former attempting to strangle the latter.” [1]
Beauty can be appreciated even when it is vast, even when it is beyond one's comprehension. I don't think this release should be primarily viewed as an outcome of competition. Instead it is revealing truths about the universe that were always there and always beautiful, even if we hadn't seen them yet. I believe there are infinitely more such beautiful truths currently hidden and waiting for us to discover.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/06/science/openai-math-probl...
It's unfortunate how toxic media reporting on AI has become. Everyone has abandoned even the pretence of objectivity. I know NYT is uniquely biased in this regard, but there was no need to add "Further Roiling Field" in the headline. Like, you published this minutes after OpenAI's announcement and claim to capture how the entire field of mathematics feels about the advancement? Before anyone has had a chance to even read let alone digest it?
"Roiling Field" seem accurate though? The discussion I've seen on here from mathematicians seems fairly roiled.
It's the NYT. What else could you possibly expect?
I think people knew it was coming. Someone rushed out a preprint a couple of weeks ago with partial results on the Unique Games Conjecture because they heard AI had solved it completely.
Objectivity? Why would you want favorable reporting for the machines they're building to replace you, and, by their own admission, potentially kill you?
The only bias here is that we're still covering these things like business ventures and not criminals.
That's a fantastic quote. I definitely personally feel this tension.
Not that I could ever "compete" on the frontier of math in the first place. But our nature to compete derives from our need to survive against other capable forces. And results like these make me feel very nervous about humans' capability to remain the dominant force in the universe.
The bitter lesson has a bitter aftertaste alas
I'm sorry, but what?
If you appreciate beauty and don't care about competing then these releases are purely good. Because you are not competing, so you aren't hurt by speed. And you are appreciating so you can appreciate more stuff.
sorry if I am misunderstanding (probably I am)
a tendency to compete and a capacity to appreciate beauty,
IDK, I think you should add tendency to cooperate, a capacity to love and perhaps some other things there.
But with things unfolding quickly and unpredictably, I think everyone's view is getting a bit foreshortened here.
> Instead it is revealing truths about the universe
Mathematical proofs aren't revealing truths about the universe. Mathematical proofs are independent of what the universe is like. Any proof would be the same in any possible universe.
You could argue mathematics is part of the universe. Or maybe vise versa.
So what word do we use instead? It is revealing truths about "reality"?
> Mathematical proofs aren't revealing truths about the universe.
That's exactly what they do, apply logic formally and systematically to discover truths.
Sure, there may be a universe where 2 + 2 = 5, but then that universe would have its own mathematics that can prove that to be true. And there will be a way to bridge that alien math to our own, again by logic and proofs, until we have a larger sense of truths not only in our universe but all possible universes. Proofs are part of the constant process of revealing deeper truths to the best of our understanding.
There is no logically possible universe where 2 + 2 = 5. It's definitionally false. OP's point is probably that math is a set of rules we invented, not something true about the universe.