Here is the statement, signed by Terry Tao among many other math notables, most of you probably have read it by now. I do not accept the most cynical interpretations of this proclamation. Some of you for instance may recall that I made and indeed stressed a similar point in the last chapter of my recent “generative book” on marginalism. In some near future, perhaps fewer economists will carry around marginalist insights and modes of thought in their heads, since you can just get the right answer by pressing the proverbial button on the AI.
I find this future disturbing, and not altogether pleasant for me personally, given how much personal status I have wrapped up in particular modes of economic thought. Yet I also know the Bastiat distinction between the seen and the unseen, and I expect the benefits to economic science from AI will be enormous, even if current practitioners cannot foresee most of those benefits today.
I do very much differ with at least one part of the mathematicians’ proclamation. They write: “…whether these changes ultimately benefit the field or have a destructive effect will in large part be determined by the decisions of the humans in control of this new technology.” There is no actual argument for that proposition, and I would sooner expect that the main “action variable” is how well the mathematicians adapt to the new reality. For instance there is nothing stopping the mathematics community from awarding status, pay, and promotions to people who “fill in the important blanks in math understanding,” even if an AI already has proven or disproven the underlying theorems. If that kind of work is so important, we still can do it and reward it professionally. In the meantime, I expect the funding for mathematics, and the interest in the topic, to rise considerably, at least in the medium term. All of a sudden, math matters much more than it used to, all the more so if P vs. NP happens to go the wrong way, or if the distribution of the primes turns out to be a little too predictable.
The mathematicians may not in every way enjoy being the subordinates or handmaidens of the AIs, but that is a change in status they simply will have to get used to, just as I realize AIs someday will end up as better column and blog writers than I am. I do not look to the companies — which I fully expect to “act like companies” — to somehow manage, moderate, or assuage that pending trend. It really is up to me to parlay my current intellectual portfolio into new, more AI-compatible intellectual and yes also marketing approaches. I’ve been given plenty of “legs up” along the way already, as is true for the Fields Medal winners as well, and it is up to me to figure out how to contribute in the future.
Might someone not invent/discover/prompt a way to use AIs to produce, articulate, and teach “more mathematical understanding” along the way? I get that solving famous dramatic math problems is the current commercial priority of the major AI companies. But as the AI space grows, these other paths hardly seem unlikely to me, and in fact the human mathematicians are the ones who can do the most to lead the way along those dimensions.
In this regard the current manifestation of complaints seems oddly early. “I didn’t like the first week or two of your intellectual revolution” is an accurate, and perhaps better reframed way of putting it. At which point perhaps a bit of patience is needed before anything else? These days, we all have more mathematical resources at our disposal, and so a bit of celebration is in order as well.
