OpenAI Astra 猜想求解将终结学术数学

The current wave of OpenAI Astra conjecture settling will be the last straw for academic mathematics.

And it will be very depressing in the short term.

To understand it, you have to know that modern mathematics is divided into many many silos of various domains. If you're working in one or doing a PhD/postdoc in one, you know of everyone else. You know what problems they work on, so that no one interferes with others' work.

Solving problems - especially known long standing conjectures - is hard and takes months, sometimes years to do. When you approach these problems you rarely work on 2-3 at a time due to limited time and mental capabilities.

Now because you know all the people that potentially could solve a given problem as well - you talk regularly at conferences, through emails, your departments - it’s fine. It's fine also because it is a slow process.

LLMs destroy all that. Something that you though about for months can be one-shotted out of the blue by an amateur.

It is demotivating and scary. And that's why the incentives in mathematics have to change as well as the role of human mathematicians. Exciting times we live in. Embrace the future.