https://projectavalon.net/forum4/ en Sun, 18 Oct 2026 12:45:55 GMT vBulletin 30 https://projectavalon.net/forum4/images/misc/rss.png https://projectavalon.net/forum4/ https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?131733-The-AI-Mathocalypse&goto=newpost Sun, 11 Oct 2026 17:34:11 GMT Apologies (if necessary!) for another AI thread, but this seems so standalone important I felt it deserved its own discussion. Some following the... Apologies (if necessary!) for another AI thread, but this seems so standalone important I felt it deserved its own discussion.

Some following the accelerating AI developments will be aware that not only did OpenAI claim to have solved the immensely difficult Navier-Stokes problem, but soon after that they published claimed proofs of 722 (seven hundred and twenty two) more unsolved math problems. They were posted by OpenAI on GitHub all at once last week, October 6.

This was like dropping a nuclear bomb on the international math community. A few were celebrating, but most were extremely concerned and one young PhD student reported that she'd been in tears every day.

One of the reasons why this is so significant is it can be seen as a precursor to human redundancy.

Another reason for concern is how this applies as as an analogy to many other rapid-fire AI developments. No human yet understands these AI 'proofs'. They can be checked — but only by using AI to check them.

One professor who'd been working on just one of these now-suddenly-solved problems all her professional life said that when she tried to look at what the AI had done, it was like deciphering an alien language. This was her own field of expert research, a rarefied specialty, but she couldn't fully understand what the AI had done at all.

And there are many nuances here. It's NOT about the possible future unemployment of highly qualified mathematicians. It's that the process of research is so very often more important than the result.

Here's an analogy that helps. Side-stepping the question about whether men did indeed land on the moon, let's assume for argument that the result of the Apollo program was that two men physically stepped on the moon on 20 July 1969.

But to get to that final result, there had to be thousands of people working for years on fuels, engines, computer controls, space suits, new materials, electronics, guidance, communication systems, and much much much else. The outcome was just two men on the moon. The benefit was a huge amount of new technical knowledge, and the ongoing education of thousands of scientists and technicians.

If Neil Armstrong had been teleported to the moon by some magical alien device that had been found in the desert, none of that technical progress would have happened.

The journey was far more important to humanity than the final goal.

And it's like that with MANY MANY things in every one of our personal lives.

Mathematics is full of instances of super-geniuses who worked for years to solve a problem that in itself was highly abstract and of zero possible practical value. But on the way there they developed new techniques, sometimes entirely new fields of research, that did have practical applications in all kinds of technologies purely as a side-effect.

For me, this is a warning shot about the potential redundancy of humans. The woman professor who'd been working in that problem all her adult life — how does she feel now?

She's been denied the possibility of figuring it all out herself, an intellectual achievement that she'd hold close to her heart until the day she died. Now that's been taken from her by a machine.

~~~

Another, far tinier, analogy is the mountain hiking I do with my dog. Sometimes it's hard work, but I feel great afterwards. Sometimes it rains, and we both get cold. Once or twice over recent years I even got lost in bad weather and had to figure things out on my own with no GPS.

But not one day has ever led to a single regret.

Suppose I could reach every challenging high peak just by riding a quadbike? Or by taking a gondola? Or a helicopter? Or just by sitting on my couch and using virtual-reality goggles?

Looking back over decades of much more serious mountaineering, every time without exception that I've negotiated a really challenging problem, the better I felt at the end of the day — with memories that have nourished me all my life.

1. Easier is not always better.
2. Instant answers to every question or problem aren't always healthy.
3. Re the human intellect and every part of us that instinctively yearns to be creative and satisfyingly solve our own problems, if we no longer use it — we'll soon all lose it.

]]> Bill Ryan https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?131733-The-AI-Mathocalypse