John Carlos Baez on Nostr: Here are Marco Gualtieri's suggestions, intersersed with some comments of my own: ...

Here are Marco Gualtieri (npub1juz…njnt)'s suggestions, intersersed with some comments of my own:

"During this period of change, we must hope that mathematicians refuse to surrender their independence while navigating the promise of AI – a key point of the Leiden declaration."

Everyone should at least read the Leiden declaration:

https://leidendeclaration.ai/

Timothy Gowers didn't sign it because he disagrees with this part:

"Technologies which affect the way in which mathematics is practiced may disturb the current system of incentives. The use of artificial intelligence — and thus also the sort of problems which it can address — may become incentivized for its own sake, disrupting our mechanisms for hiring, funding, and recognition."

As a factual statement this is true. Unfortunately, it suggests that the current system of incentives, hiring, funding etc. mainly needs to be protected. In fact it needs drastic reform. BUT, it's true that AI companies may make it much worse! So I gritted my teeth and signed the Leiden declaration, which has other parts that I agree with wholeheartedly.

"As we wait for the conglomerates to be broken up, regulated or partially nationalized by our governments, an exchange of ideas may be possible without compromising academic freedom, whether in the form of public-private partnerships housed within universities, or consulting work with non-perpetual nondisclosure agreements."

We shouldn't just "wait" for them to be broken up and regulated. We should advocate for it. And I don't think it's possible for mathematicians to work with big companies like OpenAI and Antrhopic to use LLMs to prove big theorems without becoming walking advertisements for these companies.

(2/n)