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Comment by gpt5 | Hacker News Reader

The purpose is obvious - AI companies are using math to as a PR tool to demonstrate that AI is more capable than humans. This devalues math and mathematicians. There is even a relevant announcement from today, where OpenAI announced they solve 100 open math problems, without even bothering to state what they are.

However, even if they are successful in removing math from the PR toolkit of AI companies, I can’t see it more than a short term band aid. If AI progression continues, the announcements will just transition from big flashy one, to a kid using Claude on their laptop.

I don’t have a solution here, and I’m worried it’s coming to all human fields. So it’s more of an ability to observe what might happen to all of us.

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> There is even a relevant announcement from today, where OpenAI announced they solve 100 open math problems, without even bothering to state what they are.

That announcement is about exactly this group: https://openai.com/index/advisory-group-on-mathematics-and-a...

This group has been formed to tell OpenAI whether or not (and if yes how) they should release those 100+ problems.

IMO “AI companies are using math to as a PR tool” is not quite it; they are using math problems as a benchmark to evaluate their AIs, but after the prior blowback from the mathematical community, they are happy to sit on the results until the community (this group) tells them how to publish the results.

And as you say, even if they don't publish the results eventually anyone will be able to do this when this model is released, so it's just a matter of time.

> I don’t have a solution here, and I’m worried it’s coming to all human fields. So it’s more of an ability to observe what might happen to all of us.

You can also look (as I did back in 2018 when contemplating the end of math) at how chess or Go players adapted mentally to the idea that whatever they may do, a machine could do it better (Lee Sedol famously quit Go).

https://archive.is/m9BYI

I think this matters very little. These were adaptations to initial advances of small scope which we are rapidly leaving behind. If there is truly no near and practical ceiling to the abilities of AI in mathematics, not even in terms of efficiency, then I think it is likely there is similarly no ceiling in other cognitive endeavours.

In that case, everything stands to be disrupted and those who wield AI will have massive amounts of power in the short term. But this is not a stable situation, and therefore those who wield AI will have to cede control of it or otherwise enter into a great war with those that do not.

I hope for all our sakes that there is a practical ceiling.

These math problems don't exist in a vacuum. It's not like mathematicians are doing mathematics just for the funsies.

Calling it a publicity stunt is an interesting way of framing ground breaking discoveries. The beneficiaries down stream of these discoveries could not care less how they were found.

> It's not like mathematicians are doing mathematics just for the funsies.

But they do. Most of higher math has no practical applications and is just a mental playground, philosophy constrained by formal logic and a set of axioms.

Hope is these capabilities will somehow translate to something more practical like physics, chemistry or biology.

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