> One of the points I clearly remember him saying that having AI be able to solve many of the open problems, regardless of how important there are (there are many open problems that are not that important) greatly reduces the problem space for mathematics students to give new problems to work on.
replyThe crux of the argument perhaps. It suggests that too many people are currently studying mathematics without making much progress.
>I have listened quite a few interviews with Tao and I see him being very careful about criticizing AI. He very often emphasizes the usefulness of it.
replyThis is tiresome. People should be able to flat-out criticize AI without the implied need to justify themselves all the time or "be careful". Its almost like AI has a trillion-dollar agenda backing it, to the point that you have to add a careful "its really great! But there's this little issue..." for any criticism.
Even those who are very pro AI should have the intellectual honesty of admitting that there are very valid reasons to criticize AI.
Based on the amount of low-effort criticisms out there, clearly nobody is afraid of "big AI". Tao seems careful about his critiques of AI because low-effort off-the-cuff criticism can lead to all sorts of future problems/hypocracy.
replyThat's not really addressing the same issue though. I'm saying that there is a pressure to preamble any (good or weak) criticism of AI with an Apostle's Creed of AI positiveness, reassuring the reader that what follows isn't blasphemy against AI (to borrow Huang's terms).
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