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Comment by andrepd | Hacker News Reader

How in god's name—irrespective of how valid this is, and its very valid—is this even remotely germane to the issue of AI in mathematics? Rattling off incidents and making the case that there is discrimination and sexists in mathematics (yeah no shit), how is this related to the issue of AI that was raised in the letter? Are the complaints raised in that letter any less valid because the mathematicians who signed them make part of a community which has reproachable behaviour, both past and present? I really don't get it.

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You are right.

This just reads like a rancorous rant.

In any human group there will always be issues on how we treat each other dependent on time/context/culture. But while not condoning it, this issue is orthogonal to that of misaligned AI.

The communique from the mathematicians when shorn of polite language is blunt viz.

AI companies are stealing our hard-won lifelong research findings, which we were already sharing freely, without attribution/credit and building upon them without informed consent nor compensation.

The above is true for "misaligned AI" in all the Sciences. It is time the Scientific Community got together and sued the hell out of the AI companies.

No informed consent is needed to use previous research findings. This is the invention of IP that doesn't exist.

You do with leading edge research problem approaches; particularly if you plan to throw millions of dollars worth of resources to brute-force a solution which a normal researcher (who has actually done part of the hard work over a long period of time) cannot afford.

It is called common decency/etiquette, having ethics/morals and not plagiarising/stealing others work.

You've pulled that out of thin air, so I can dismiss it in the same spirit.

No, there is no such requirement. Deal.

What part of "It is called common decency/etiquette, having ethics/morals and not plagiarising/stealing others work" don't you understand?

It is the accepted way to use each other's works in the scientific community. That is why citations/references/bibliographies exist.

I understand it. I just consider it a bullshit take that has nothing to do with the reality of mathematics.

There's never been such a consideration that one should not work on a problem that someone else is working on or has worked on. Nor do I think it's something that should be true. Mathematics exists and is supported to benefit society, not to pamper mathematicians.

> There's never been such a consideration that one should not work on a problem that someone else is working on or has worked on.

That is not what i meant at all. This is your erroneous take.

In any scientific community when people work on the same problems, if they are aware of the others work, they usually cooperate/share their findings especially if the problem is a long-standing nobel-prize/fields-medal worthy one. If one builds their approach based on others then there definitely is a citation/reference acknowledging others contributions.

This is the ethical accepted practice since the dawn of the scientific age because "standing on the shoulders of giants" and building from there is how science advances.

The letter claims that AI is destroying the mathematics community as is now. The blog asks whether the mathematics community as is now is worth saving.

Why does it have to be about that? The author says they agree with the letter in the first paragraph.

It's a clumsily made point, but I think the gist is that the letter asks AI to align to a certain ideal vision of the field of math, that the math community itself is not well aligned to. I don't think the article makes this point well, though, just by listing these incidents. Don't get me wrong - each incident is important and worthy of attention in its own right, but I find the overall argument to be pretty weak and strongly reeking of whataboutism.

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