Post by @Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems

2026-10-09 21:02 UTC

I mean, I don’t know, my confusion comes from also seeing a lot of mathematicians react as if mathematics are over and that it sucks that the future is all about checking AI proofs. And I suppose it’s unpleasant when a sort of maybe authoritative entity comes out of nowhere and tells you the answer to your favourite problem is 42 and doesn’t elaborate. But I feel like I might be missing something as to why this is a big deal.

Replies (1)

@YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 2026-10-10 03:03

I imagine that it’s the same thing that programmers have been dealing with. Basically everyone I’ve talked to has acknowledged that code reviews are important parts of the software development process, but nobody has ever said they like them. Now here comes the glorious LLM future where in order to maximize productivity you get to do nothing but code reviews forever, only worse because the answer to “what were they thinking when they wrote this” is always “lmao fuk u”. Even ignoring what kind of consequence that kind of change would have on the actual progress of the field of mathematics, it also just makes being a mathematician into a different kind of day-to-day job, and one that most people who are currently in the field would likely find far less satisfying. And unlike the programmers they’re not even paid some absurd amount of money for it [citation needed].

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