Solving Math Without AI Will Become a Sport Like Sprinting
Writer Noah Smith argues machines will take the hardest proofs, leaving humans to solve problems for beauty and fun.
Noahpinion · The end of the age of heroesWhen writer Noah Smith tried to make sense of an AI model solving ten outstanding problems in math, he did not predict that mathematicians would all lose their jobs. He predicted they would lose something else, the chance to be heroes, and he offered this consolation to explain what would remain.
"Just as there are still sprinters even though humans can't outrun cars, there will still be mathletes," Smith argues.
By mathletes, he means smart people who will keep trying to solve hard problems without AI, even though computers are likely to outperform them. They will do it for the same reason people still run races they know a car would win, or build furniture by hand in a factory age, because the effort itself is beautiful and hard and fun.
Smith had seen a skill lose its value to technology before, at home. A great-uncle of his could multiply large numbers in his head faster than Smith could with a hand calculator, more often than not. That skill was once valuable to employers, Smith notes, and today it is just a curiosity, another John Henry story, named for the folk hero who raced a steam drill and lost, about a human ability that technology superseded.
Mathematician Jacob Tsimerman, who recently won the Fields Medal, a major prize in mathematics, and then joined OpenAI, makes the same point about pleasure. Smith quotes him saying, "I do not do mathematics only to find truth. I do it largely because I enjoy it and I am good at it."
Smith admits the loss is real. Tsimerman warns that many people get their primary enjoyment from grappling with problems and resolving confusions, and if machines take that challenge, "many of them might not want to do it anymore."
But Smith believes most mathematicians will still be paid to keep learning, enjoy themselves, and earn respect. They just will not be indispensable. Like woodworkers after power tools, they will keep practicing the old way because they love it, not because society needs them to outcompute the machine.
Questions people ask
What is Astra, and did it really solve ten math problems?
Astra is OpenAI's AI model that Smith says solved ten major outstanding problems in mathematics and theoretical computer science. The achievement recalled earlier man-versus-machine moments like chess and Go, though Smith cautions it does not mean AI beats humans at every kind of math.
Will mathematicians lose their jobs to AI?
Smith does not think so. He notes that only a few mathematicians do frontier research while most teach, and that all academic mathematician salaries in America total a few billion dollars, a tiny share of the economy. He argues society will keep paying them because human understanding is seen as worthwhile in itself.
What is the Fields Medal?
It is a prize awarded every four years to young mathematicians, widely treated as the highest honor in the field. Tsimerman had just won it when he joined OpenAI and reflected on why he does mathematics.