VecGS
Chaotic good
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User ID: 599
VecGS
Chaotic good
25d ago
That's the thing exactly. If, through using AI tools, you can be the first to prove something, isn't that a good thing? Only through discovery can we reach higher to ask bigger question. It took a lot of work as a civilization to get to the point where we had the language to construct things like the Navier–Stokes equation in the first place; they don't just get written down in a vacuum.
So we've gotten to a step change in the system. The real challenge will be to be the first the ask the question in the first place. Even if that is automated away, you're still left with the pure joy of learning and discovery which is rewarding unto itself.
VecGS
Chaotic good
25d ago
I'm certainly in the "love of the game" category of programmer. I honestly think that you have as many in math. And unlike computers, few people ever went into math to get rich -- so my internal estimate is even higher for the math side.
Side-topic: I think the programmers who are in it for just money are the ones that are going to get selected out. I've been at this for a long enough that when I started a programmer was a good white-collar job, but not one to get you rich. My experience, and frustration, with how the field has changed over the decades is that the quality of people has become absolutely dreadful outside of a few highly selective places. And even places like Amazon (where I spent some time) are compromised.
I get joy from many things. From tweaking things big and small. I don't think I ever really got joy from the act of writing code. It was always a means to an end. And the end doesn't have to be strictly useful. Something I've been kicking around for the past 35 years (also: crap... I'm feeling old) is an implementation of the Game of Life from John Conway who would fit in with your list perfectly. I came up with what I still think is the fastest way to play it with "normal" code in the general case. Using Claude I was able to get this implemented with a front-end that I can interact with. I get joy from the algorithm. Joy from thinking of low-level optimizations. Joy from learning more about the innards of how the processor I'm on handles cache lines.
I don't get joy from setting up a build system. No joy from setting up a front-end that runs on my Mac. Very little joy from tweaking an unrolled inner loop. Less joy from setting up unit tests.
Having AI lets me get to that joy. And it makes me incredibly happy. And it lets me paper over the parts I consider ditch digging.
My gut says that the folks in math want the same thing. Come up with an idea, and have something else handle the proof. There's joy in simply making something better or pushing the frontier a bit more.
And with AI, you can make bigger leaps. Ask bigger questions. Get more joy from discovery.
In case you're interested: https://github.com/gburgyan/vlife and a technical paper in docs that's more presentable.
VecGS
Chaotic good
26d ago
People still play chess even though computers have long been better at it than use humans.
I'm in programming, one of the fields that has already been most affected by AI. I can also report that I'm having some of the most fun and being more productive than I've ever been. My key has been to just embrace AI hard and use it as a tool the best that I can.
You also see the culture war starting up in that space. There are several Linux distros that have people pledge that they haven't used AI in the process of doing their contributions. My prediction is either: a) people are just lying about not using AI or b) they'll just lose and people who are using AI will simply outperform them in the marketplace of ideas.
So math people simply need to get on board. The train is leaving no matter their opinion of it.
I would argue that a large part of art is connecting with another human being through a shared experience. I think that's why so many artists are up in arms about making art so "easy," because it drops the human connection in many ways. The only human in the loop is prompting.
My view is that things will adapt. The human connection is still needed and there will always be art done the "old fashioned way." People still drag around large-format cameras to take pictures or simply shoot on film. My friend does painting and is trying to make a business of it.
At the same time, things have gotten easier. You don't have to be a "good" photographer to take a good photo with your phone's camera -- because there's already so much AI in that loop making things better. Same with so much other human-made art (and beyond). It's so much easier to get to the joy of creation. With photography, you can be creative with your phone and don't need the traditional thousands of dollars of gear to start creating.
The removal of those gates, both financial and the gate of years of practice, is what allows for that creation. I think we should celebrate that, not regulate it. Why does not "paying your dues" make your contribution invalid?
If your art, regardless of how it's made, helps you connect to others, I say that's a good thing.
I have a lot of other ideas in my head I'm trying to get out and make into a coherent argument, but I'm having trouble. For instance, we've had computer spell-checkers for decades now and no one blinks at that. We've had simple grammar checkers for a while as well, predating the AI everywhere thing we're seeing now, and no one really cares about that. It's only a matter of time before AI does more and people don't care. The only thing that really frustrates me is when people give up their agency to AI and stop thinking for themselves. AI is an amplifier of a human's ideas and abilities. But humans are still important.
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