Technology

Suppose we had a library filled with proofs of every theorem [in mathematics], as well as excellent guides that could, given a question, take us to the answer and explain it. What would a mathematician do in such a library?

If you ask the question this way, the answer becomes clear: they would be unbelievably excited, and immediately get to work. They would immediately start asking questions: how does one prove the Riemann hypothesis? The Hodge conjecture? Their own pet obsession (in my case, the Grothendieck-Katz p-curvature conjecture)? Then they would work until they understood the answer. The job would not be done, not even close.

This paragraph by Daniel Litt feels to me like hubris coming from someone in the position of power. Many tech-optimistic mathematician are not at the risk of being replaced by AI because they are either on the tenure track or already tenured.

We need to acknowledge that mathematics is a subject of more human importance than economical importance. In this hyper profit driven world, field without a primary economical drive will necessarily shrink significantly.

Mathematics have no doubt experienced that: in the cold war, mathematics is behind most of the technological advancement that lead to concrete economical output. Later, as many of these fields stablized, engineer and computer scientists takes the place of mathematician, and mathematics shrunk significantly.

Now mathematics still holds importance because people believe it still encapsulates important ideas that have the potential to be the next generation of economical driver force. And mathematicians are important to preserve and disseminate such knowledge.

So if such truth oracle described above can develop and articulate any mathematical idea better than (or even close to the quality of) any mathematicians, it would be fun for established mathematician to flip through the answer sheets of their puzzle, but it would kill the financial driver and wipe out most of professional mathematics with it.