5 Comments

PS. I find a number of things perpetrated by Facebook atrocious, but your association (however implicit and tenuous) of the Breakthrough Prize recipients with these atrocities I find no less problematic than association of the Nobel Prize recipients with the atrocities committed by using dynamite.

Expand full comment

(1) "I am more worried that A“I”s will never become good at mathematics, but will become excellent at *bullshitting* about mathematics. "

(2) "What’s more, I completely agree with your argument that, mathematics being a human endeavour, A“I”s1 will need to interact with humans in order to practice it. Indeed, I believe that, left to their own devices, A“I”s will not generate anything that admits any kind of human interpretation at all."

I am not worried at all about (1). It is its overall comparative imperviousness to "bullshit", combined with being utterly indispensable as an instrument of comprehension/mastery/power that makes mathematics special in this respect.

Is Harris or Trump a more "democratic" choice to be the next US President? Apparently, at this juncture, the answer to this question is a coin-toss (H or T). There is only one way to find out: US elections -- a quintessentially "human endeavor" (cf. (2)).

But the proof of, say, the Riemann Hypothesis by, say, you or I or by A"I", upon being verified as valid by, say Aleph-Lean-4, will be accepted as such by you and me -- and all the humans at large -- unequivocally; and, in due course (and I trust before too long) understand the proof humans will.

Nevertheless I remain attached to the view expressed by Hermann Weyl: ‘We stand in mathematics precisely at that point of limitation and freedom which is the essence of man himself.’

Expand full comment

Regarding footnote 2, "one" is an English language, gender-neutral, indefinite pronoun that means, roughly, "a person".

Expand full comment

But the relevant expression appears to be in Swedish, namely "den som," which the internet tells me can be translated "the one who." But the same source gives this example of a sentence including "den som"

"Den som sätter igång först når mest framgång."

which the same dictionary translates as

"The early bird catches the worm"

although none of the Swedish words means "bird" or "worm." I take this to mean nevertheless that "den som" could just as well refer to a bird, which is not a person; so why not also a machine?

Expand full comment

Because "The early bird catches the worm" is idiom, not a literal translation. The literal translation would be "whoever arrives first has the best chance of success." The will presumably is based on the literal meaning of the word, not an idiomatic or poetic usage of the term.

Expand full comment