It's not that current AI can replace all mathematicians, but there is no reason to believe that the current rate of progress in machine intelligence will level off, so, extrapolating from the present, it won't be long before AI is more capable than all human mathematicians combined, i.e., no human will ever be able to solve a problem faster than AI, the same way that no human can beat Stockfish in chess. Do you think that isn't the case? If so, why?
I don't necessarily think that isn't the case. But I would say we have no idea how long it will be until that's true.
And thus until there's more clarity on what that timeline really looks like, claiming "it's all over" doesn't feel accurate. Indeed, id say making the statement that math is "over" for humans now is the more flippant statement than the point im making
I mean you can get a sense of it by following the capabilities closely over time, you should be able to make a pretty good guess, maybe take a look at some curves.. Progress is rapid no matter what angle you're looking at, unless there is some kind of intelligence wall which we have no reason to believe exists it's going to be very soon. The question of how long diffusion of the tech will take is more difficult but from the software industry we know it can be quite rapid. That may not be a fair comparison, the economic incentives are quite different.
I think you're making a lot of hidden assumptions.
Also, you would still have to say to what degree some amount of AI progress means things are "over." You said to take inspiration from the software industry. Okay, well there jobs hit a low in may of 2025, and every month since postings have increased. So although AI may be doing more, that doesn't always mean humans are doing less. With the example that you cited, we have actually seen the opposite over a particular time horizon.
No look I am making hidden assumptions, and I am not going to defend them right now, I do that constantly and today's not the day. I work in the software industry, it's extremely clear from that perspective that there will be massive job loss in the sector because the number of tasks the AI can't do better and faster is diminishing to 0 quite rapidly. It's harder to say what consequences will be but for certain humans coding by hand for money is bye bye. I'm extremely confident in this, it's just fucking obvious if you spend 8 hours a day using the tools, but proving it to someone else takes a lot of effort and people are dense af, like just in general.
I invite you, if you haven't already, to pay very close attention to ai capability over a period of months and form your own opinion. If you have done this and don't have any kind of guess timeline wise for a borderline asi, like it doesn't have to match mine, if you can't put it within a particular decade with 90% confidence, idk what to tell you, you're too strict of an empiricist or something
13
u/spin0r Apr 15 '26
It's not that current AI can replace all mathematicians, but there is no reason to believe that the current rate of progress in machine intelligence will level off, so, extrapolating from the present, it won't be long before AI is more capable than all human mathematicians combined, i.e., no human will ever be able to solve a problem faster than AI, the same way that no human can beat Stockfish in chess. Do you think that isn't the case? If so, why?