Is the era of mathematics research done by humans over?

The articles 'Why would you ruin your career?': OpenAI claims to have cracked one of math's greatest unsolved problems, but mathematicians allege it played dirty, OpenAI fought dirty on career-making math problem, says NYU mathematician, and AI Is Solving Math's Best Problems Faster Than They Can Be Replaced, Terence Tao Warns, make clear that AI poses more than an existential threat to research mathematicians. 

The situation is just crazy at this point, but underneath the accusations is a deeper question of whether humans have any future in doing mathematics. The smartphone I carry on my hip today has more computational power than the most powerful computer in existence on the day I was born. While the compute in question used an astronomical sum of money - 22 million dollars worth of tokens - that is at today's capabilities. 

Mathematics done by humans has hit an existential crisis. While my emotions side with the human mathematicians and their call for either a ban on AI in math, or at least a pause, China has models as good (if not better) than the United States and other nations are not far behind. A ban in one nation would be an opportunity elsewhere. 

These stories always lead me back to questions of what we should be teaching in a mathematics class. I remain convinced that teaching hand solving algebraic equations is like learning the algorithm to calculate a square root by hand, or a logarithm by hand. These things can all be calculated and solved by technology. But it seems to me that quantitative literacy remains important, that numeracy matters. 

For me, the question of what should be taught is made concrete by my grandson.


I cannot see the current high school and college mathematics curriculum being of any use to him during his lifetime. Not that schools are trying to prepare students to become research mathematicians, but that the tools will always be there to solve any level of mathematical problem that they face. Along with AI that explain the meaning and use of the result of a calculation. What is left to teach? 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Moodle bulk grading of manually marked quiz and test questions

Image
Manual marking of an essay type question on a quiz or test in Moodle can be done student by student but that process involves a lot of clicking and scrolling as one has to open each student's submission. There is a bulk marking screen available. In the test or quiz click on Results. At the upper left side is a stealth drop down list menu under the word "Grades" that includes the option "Manual grading." Choose manual grading. On the far right click on the blue "grade all" hyperlink. That will open up a all of the submissions for question one on a single page. One can now mark all of the question one submissions manually for all students in the course. 
Read more

Experimenting with the PlantNet and iNaturalist apps

Image
The application of image recognition technologies as the back end to botany apps is providing increasingly relevant search results. Over the recent winter break I began looking at whether the apps now available might be useful to the ethnobotany class here on Pohnpei. Some apps had a more regional focus in the past and were better at north american or european plants. Pohnpei has a both unique indigenous plants and many introduced plants from around the world -  a challenging environment for any image recognition system. A student working with a plant identification app for the first time My criterion was that the app had to be appropriate for use in my classroom. The app could not contain advertising and the app had to be free, my students typically do not have the ability to pay for an app. The app would also have to be fairly small as my students often use phones with limited memory and processing power. I settled on PlantNet and was impressed with the ability of the a...
Read more

Traditional food dishes of Micronesia

Image
Clara, Jennette, and Joanie presented ground hard taro cooked in an umw, effectively a hot rock oven. Pohnpeian: rotama. Pingelapese: sero. Mwoakillese: rodma. Mortlockese: Amahd. Kosrae: rodoma. After cooking in an umw the rotama is pounded with the petiole of a palm frond. Rotama is made from hard or swamp taro, known as mwahng on Pohnpei, mweian on Pingalap, pula in Mortlockese, and pahsruhk on Kosrae. In traditional times on the outer islands the women had primary responsibility for tending the taro while the men handled fishing and climbing tasks. Joesen and Noeleen presented fermented breadfruit from the outer islands of Yap such as Woleai and Eauripik. The raw ingredients were actually brought in from Yap, Noeleen prepared the maare.  The leaf wrap is ti leaf - Cordyline fruticosa. Pauleen, Barnson, Trisha, Verginia, Con-ray, and Maylanda from Kitti, Pohnpei brought in mahi umw, koahpnoair koakihr, and uht sukusuk. Above is breadfruit umw, mahi umw, o...
Read more