Q&A: How I Feel About AI in Math

by Justin Skycak on

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A reader asked this question: “Justin, how do you feel about the mathematical results openai just released?”

My answer:

You might say I’m… stoked! 😂

Okay, serious answer.

In my mind, math is ultimately a tool for understanding and improving the world. And if you’re a mathematician whose salary is paid by taxpayers, then your job is to pose and solve problems that may (perhaps one day) improve the lives of taxpayers.

So when math problems get solved, I’m happy. Even if the solution turns out not to be as valuable as hoped, then I’m still happy, because we’ve learned something about the problem, and we can decide whether to re-pose it or move on.

I realize that there are legitimate concerns over attribution of the ideas involved in solutions, and I do think that it should continue to be a centerpiece of AI discussions. It’s terrible when someone rips your work and doesn’t credit you for it.

That’s happened to me a number of times with people ripping my own work/writing – fortunately, they haven’t gotten much traction with it, but if they did, you bet I’d be spending time calling them out. So I understand and sympathize with that part of some mathematicians’ pushback on AI solutions to math problems.

But there’s another type of pushback that I’m seeing more and more, that I think is just whiny and entitled.

It’s when a problem gets solved and the reaction is some version of “Hey, that’s my toy. I was playing with it. Give it back. And don’t touch my other toys. They’re mine.”

And when that kind of reaction comes from a mathematician who is funded by taxpayers, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for taxpayers to get pissed.

It’s respectable to find work that unifies your own intrinsic interests with providing value to broader society.

But I have no interest in my taxes subsidizing work whose only justification is the intellectual fulfillment of mathematicians.


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