WELCOME!

For those who subscribed after reading the Siobhan Roberts article in the NY Times

Over the last 24 hours there have been more than 100 new subscriptions to this newsletter, and I’m sure it’s because it was mentioned in the article by Siobhan Roberts in the science section of Sunday’s New York Times.¹ I hope new subscribers² are not disappointed by what they find here. Since this newsletter has been running for nearly two years, it might be helpful to provide a brief guide to newcomers.

It was particularly convenient that the same issue of the Times featured a long essay by Evgeny Morozov (dated June 30, however) entitled “The True Threat of Artificial Intelligence.” The Roberts article alluded to my “qualms” about the role of AI in mathematics. Most of these “qualms” coincide, point for point, with the issues raised in Morozov’s essay. For example, when Roberts informs us that Tony Wu has set out to “solve mathematics,” Morozov helps us identify Wu’s ambition as an instance of what he has called solutionism, of which he now says that “‘digital neoliberalism’ would be just as fitting”:

This worldview reframes social problems in light of for-profit technological solutions. As a result, concerns that belong in the public domain are reimagined as entrepreneurial opportunities in the marketplace.

Roberts writes that I am “troubled by the potentially conflicting goals and values of research mathematics and the tech and defense industries.” This is because, as Morozov explains, tech executives

…are beholden to an ideology that views this new technology as inevitable and, in a safe version, as universally beneficial. Its proponents can think of no better alternatives for fixing humanity and expanding its intelligence.

When Roberts refers to my wish to see a “discussion about the larger implications of AI on mathematical research… ‘contrasted with the very lively conversation going on’ about the technology ‘pretty much everywhere except mathematics,’ Morozov’s article is an excellent contribution to the kind of “lively conversation” I have in mind. The new journal Critical AI promises to provide a venue for just this kind of “lively conversation.” I hope my colleagues in mathematics will be paying attention.

Roberts referred to the concern I expressed in this post about the presence of a representative of the military-industrial complex at last month’s NASEM Workshop. I wrote that before I watched Stella Biderman’s presentation. Although Biderman’s listed affiliation is with military contractor Booz Allen Hamilton as well as with EleutherAI, I hope I made it clear in my most recent post that nothing in her presentation suggested any direct association with the sordid sides of the contractor’s work.

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The newsletter has nothing like an index, but the following list should help give a sense of the topics and themes treated over the past two years.

On “the potentially conflicting goals and values of research mathematics and the tech and defense industries”: Mathematics and the Undead; Trademarking Common Notions, Part I.

On the politics of the ideology underlying much of the discourse around AI and mathematics: Does Mathematics “Progress”?; Luddites are Misunderstood; How to Create Luddites.

On the radical difference between the goals of mathematics and computing: Math is from Eros, Computing is from Thanatos; Understanding vs. Reasoning.

On Silicon Valley’s grandiose ambitions to “solve mathematics”: Game over for Mathematicians (Part 2); Google’s Data Grab Grabs Mathematics.

On what it might really look like for AI to perform “human-level” mathematics: What is "human-level mathematical reasoning"? Part 1; Part 2; Part 3 (involves more technical mathematical material).

1. Siobhan Roberts, “AI is coming for mathematics, too”, July 2, 2023.

2. The total number of subscribers just passed 800 as I was writing this.