Post #4327978

"The situation isn’t quite like the situation in chess, where powerful chess programs got to the point they could beat humans, but human to human chess competition survived. Where we’re going could be analogous to chess playing where everyone is using, with or without acknowledging it, some sort of chess program." — @peterwoit@mathstodon.xyz (https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=15787) I'm kinda sick of people comparing the use of AI in math to the use of engines chess. They really, really aren't comparable. It's more like the use of steroids in sport, except there are no regulations whatsoever, and a small handful of companies are giving them free to some people, selling them to others, people talk about it openly and even boast of using them. Or maybe more like little motors in bicycles in the Tour de France, because it's external technology, not a self-modification thing (at least, not in the way steroids directly boost one's muscle mass etc). Mathematics isn't a supervised and highly-regulated activity. I actually do use AI to discuss bits of mathematics I want to learn, where it's not obvious what source I can go to. I ask it questions about small things that are pre-existing, or small calculations in areas I'm not familiar with, as a way to absorb the ideas. Very often it's a painful process of me telling the AI it's actually wrong, or not really answering my questions, but I guess this type of thing is getting rarer (I can't quantify, my usage is sporadic).