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Comment by glimshe | Hacker News Reader

While so many are complaining about AI on HN, an absolute master of his field is using it without any self-doubt or negativity. Just getting stuff done better and faster while remaining at the top.

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> While tribe fear hot whispering rock, Wise number shaman wield it. Make cave painting faster, better. No fear. Shaman top mammoth hunter, king hill.

Other tribe not hate whispering rock. Tribe hate rock salesman saying it solve every problem. Thinking rock make many wrong marks! Shaman must check every mark himself! Whispering rock speak with big confidence even when wrong. Dangerous rock! Who clean mess? Shaman! Soon shaman forget how to hunt! Today rock help shaman. Tomorrow chief say no need shaman. Me worry.

> Thinking rock make many wrong marks

So do humans. Don't Lean proofs take care of that?

Also, whispering rock owned by big tribe far away. Big tribe can take away whispering rock.

In a recent talk (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49056620), Terence Tao plainly says that AI generating and verifying proofs is only part of the picture. The process of making the proof usable/readable and then canonicalizing them so they can form a foundation for math built on that proof is the other half of the picture and those things are something that can only be done by human minds.

The second part can only be done by human minds... For now. Just like the first part could only be done by human minds until a few years (or decades) ago.

I'm not in the habit of counting my chickens before they've hatched and neither should anyone else. There are plenty of technologies, like fusion power, where supposedly another breakthrough or two is just around the corner that will make them viable but never comes.

Tao is on the advisory board for the AI for math fund:

https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2024/12/05/ai-for-math-fund/

He is leading another AI foundation:

https://sair.foundation/

He is partnering with the commercial startup math.inc (funny name, isn't it?):

https://www.math.inc/a-conversation-with-terry-tao

He is knee deep in the AI money. This submission is him desperately trying to simplify a spaghetti AI proof (i.e., menial work) to show that AI works. He didn't discover anything new.

I find his submission very valuable. It is not only digestible for humans but also summarizes the proof, explains what humans were missing, and highlights the methods that could help with stronger and similar conjectures (see his comments to the post).

I don’t see enough people here expressing awareness of the deep societal revolution that is about to unfold. I’m grateful to Terence Tao for doing his best in this strange time to discover how human mathematics can adapt, but I’m not sure why you think this means he’s some uncritical user of AI. And he’s definitely not so shallow as being primarily motivated by staying at “the top”. That’s just silly.

Tao: “There will be some places where we should use AI, but we should take initiative and decide what those are,” he said. “We set the rules on what’s acceptable or not, and we should not let external actors define those for us.”

https://www.simonsfoundation.org/2026/08/13/fields-medalist-...

> while remaining at the top.

isn't the linked post precisely an example of the opposite?

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