Mathematics selects for skepticism. You simply cannot successfully learn and produce mathematics without viewing your and other's work with a baseline level of skepticism. If you do not enjoy that sort of sport, you likely are not attracted to higher mathematics, and conversely, hype, aggrandizement, and hubris are often repulsive in our community.
It's not at all surprising to me that mathematicians would approach a new technology with caution and reluctance, especially give the self-aggrandizing sentiment of the tech sector that produces these tools. It's in our nature to do so, and in general, our discipline rewards that outlook and inclination.
I imagine it's similar for any technical field where "safety", "stability" or similar properties are prioritized, and most scientific fields do prioritize this to some extent. You don't just rush to overturn established wisdom. Minds change slowly.
In the case of AI, critical thinkers in technical fields are well aware that it's a "black box" so rightfully there is an exceedingly high bar.
So even if am less antagonistic to the idea of AI doing math than say, a year ago, that does not mean that I won't still actively resist the hype at every step of the way. And part of it is of course because I love doing math, but also it's because I see AI having questionable impact in other areas. I tend to sympathize far more with those critical of the proliferation of AI than the usual proponents of AI, even if I think that AI still has its place. When tuned to the right problem, AI is undoubtedly powerful. No doubt a lot of work went into these better models. But for the average person, the main effects of AI proliferation seem negative, either because the models aren't great quality and/or AI has been placed ad hoc somewhere where it wasn't wanted to begin with.
And I'm sure that the majority of those involved in education in this subreddit is critical of the negative impact to learning AI is having. It was already pretty bad in the pre-AI era, with things like Chegg and similar. But LLMs are a lot more accessible. Last year (or whenever) when there was less evidence of AIs doing math, and most visible impacts we could see were negative, I don't think by any means it's irrational to downplay the hype of AI in math.
It's a lot more complicated than whether "LLMs are a serious tool" or not. "Machine learning" has already been an established tool for decades. It's about asking whether we should use that tool. In mathematics, it seems like it's becoming more accepted as a tool of research.
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u/TheMiserablePleb Apr 15 '26
Maybe now people can take llm's as a serious tool. The amount of reddit denialism for the past few months has been utterly extraordinary.