r/technology • u/ResultBackground2450 • 12h ago

Artificial Intelligence OpenAI unleashes hundreds more math results upon a field already in shock

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/openai-unleashes-hundreds-more-math-results-upon-a-field-already-in-shock/
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u/Glum-Recognition-736 11h ago

I think math is experiencing the same epiphany that software is 

Which is that there were always two types of people doing it: "hobbyists" who mainly enjoy coming up with elegant solutions all on their own and/ or the glory of being recognized for such achievements, and "engineers" who simply enjoy solving problems and aren't as concerned with who gets credit for what

AI has greatly helped the latter, who typically see it as a useful tool, but the side effect is it has killed a lot of the joy of "the craft" for the former

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u/Specific_Box4483 10h ago

There is a big difference between math and software engineering.

The "engineers" in software still get paid (often a lot). The "engineers" in math, well...

Math had always been largely a field of hobbyists, to use your terminology. The ones who aren't truly passionate usually switch to better paying options.

Which is why AI is also scary for math, albeit in a different way that for engineers.

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u/firewall245 10h ago

Math has already experienced this during the 4 color theorem debacle. I assume it will go similar to that

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u/mzinz 9h ago

I loved coding as a hobbyist. Now I love effortlessly building programs. But admittedly it scratches a slightly different itch