Math can mean different things to different people.

It’s simple sums for children or sophisticated models for hedge fund managers. For mathematicians, it is an act of discovery. Many spend years trying to find new mathematical truths or “proofs,” work that can underpin everything from cryptography and computing to finance and engineering.

Now artificial intelligence is taking over some of that exploration, helping solve longstanding problems like the so-called Jacobian conjecture, and the field’s top minds find themselves deeply uncertain about whether that is ultimately good or bad. The answer could go either way, depending on whether mathematicians can quickly establish new standards for dealing with AI. With promising developments on that front already under way, the field could create a valuable blueprint for other forms of knowledge work.

An online post went viral recently when its writer, a Ph.D. student in pure mathematics named Kirwin Hampshire, confessed to having a “spiritual crisis” over the threat of AI taking away the most meaningful part of his work. While bots discovered new proofs, he warned that mathematicians were becoming mere spectators.

Keith Carne, a retired Cambridge mathematician, says his field is particularly susceptible to AI because the technology can cross-reference so many potential connections.........

© The Japan Times