Erdosproblems.com Succumbs to the AI Onslaught

62 points - today at 12:53 PM

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Comments

dooglius today at 8:54 PM
> I think it is against the spirit of Erdős to regard any problem as 'closed' -- whenever one form of a question is answered, many others are created, and all problems deserve continued attention.

But I thought the whole idea of the list was that it catalogued precisely the problems Erdos posed that he did not solve. The broader set of "all problems Erdos found interesting, including those he resolved" would be both larger and I suspect qualitatively different.

pfdietz today at 12:53 PM
(Title is my clickbaiting)

From the link:

"The main way that people publicly interact with the site now is to advertise their AI-generated proofs, often without any attempt to explain them, but as a way to record a (increasingly meaningless) priority claim.

This is very different to what I imagined, and I don't want to manage a website which does this."

nemomarx today at 8:46 PM
"I believe that websites with this function should exist -- places where people can record AI-generated proofs, even if purely formal with no human understanding, to save others wasting their tokens generating the same proof, and so that other people can access and use them if they desire. There are now several candidates for such repositories, and if managed responsibly, they can serve a useful role in the mathematical ecosystem. I personally don't want to manage one.

Just as one does not open a restaurant in an abattoir, it is important that there be a separation between such repositories and a site which aims to promote the actual questions, place them in an appropriate context, and give a useful overview of the current state of human understanding."

I think this is a very reasonable blog post overall. A site for agents to read has many different needs and concerns than one for humans. Really anthropic or openai should be whipping this up for theirs.

Qiu_Zhanxuan today at 6:09 PM
A welcome change, people posting AI-generated proof to claim credits are the scourge on mankind discoveries. It's time everyone that still hasn't, let go of their ego. All Hail the era of elegance.
fwlr today at 8:48 PM
It is becoming exceedingly difficult to ignore that the benefits of AI accrue disproportionately to those most deficient of scruples, while its costs and harms fall upon the selfless and pleasant like laser-guided virtue-seeking munitions.

I do not particularly care to debate a theory of why it is so, nor press a charge of malice or intent; mere observation suffices to convince me that this shit is corrosive to the better nature of humanity.

jwpapi today at 9:10 PM
Seems like a well thought through response and really smart changes.

I especially like that he’s allowing AI if it generates a better learning proof. That’s so considerate.

mistercheph today at 9:34 PM
Woah that's racist against robots you luddite, extermination of humanity is inevitable and this resistance is obviously futile.
Retr0id today at 9:13 PM
Editorialized title?
bananaflag today at 7:41 PM
I find it sad that I can't use the site as a tracker for solved problems anymore.
afsg-qsgf today at 8:53 PM
The fracking or strip mining of mathematics is repulsive. It must be noted here that Jeremy Avigad, who posted a soothing pro-AI guest article on Tao's blog on Oct. 5th, is running a strip mining project:

https://huggingface.co/papers/2608.16977

Salparvezml today at 9:37 PM
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isaac_laughs today at 9:00 PM
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charcircuit today at 8:54 PM
It's disappointing to see the author having such a low view of AI native mathematicians. The excitement from solving these problems should be considered a good thing. More people engaging and having fun with math is positive.

>Some view the future of mathematics as a dystopian...

>I believe Erdős would have found this future grim indeed

If you describe something as dystopian that is going to majorly bias someone's opinion towards being grim. That doesn't mean that dystopian description is reality.