Soon enough instead of Millennium Prize Problems we will have a list of problem AI has not been able to solve, with even bigger reputational reward for humans
Mathematics is humanity's current best approximation to a universal language, capable of expressing conscious thought precisely.
It's a "programming language for the human brain" that lets you describe reality exactly and thereby make predictions about it.
Without people (humans) knowing and understanding it, society is incapable of grasping reality in any meaningful way, unable to shape it in order to achieve a better tomorrow.
Most never realize that, because society is compartmentalized to the point of people never witnessing how it actually works under the hood. "Experts" do things for you that you never heard of, but that your very life depends upon.
While the majority of people thus lives a kind of "simulated" reality, the mechanisms underpinning that cushioned fantasy land aren't infallible. You cannot uphold an economy nor even a social structure without understanding and modeling it to a sufficient degree.
What the vast majority employs as "rational thought" isn't sufficient.
And if AI can also make use of the math, then the AI is all you need in order to grasp a better tomorrow. If AI poops out a warp drive, you don't need to understand it to use it. The argument about humans needing to understand anything only holds true as long as humans have something unique to contribute, which might not be the case even a year or two from now.
Competitions are a way to motivate people. What do you believe, why they get set up in the first place? Because rich people have fun seeing you run in circles?
Competition for tenure and publishing metrics has been detrimental to science in general.
Your idea of life being about grabbing whatever comes your way and consuming it first says a lot about you, but not about life.
What do you suppose happens in a society where the constituents of that society "have nothing to contribute"? Your habit of over-simplification will come to bite you.
And about what happens in a society where constituents have nothing to contribute... I have no idea. But we might find out within a decade or so. The fact that what happens might not all be great is unlikely to stop any of the AI labs.
yea that's why there are no named prizes awarded to mathematicians which come with hundreds of thousands of dollar in prize money....
lol do you people actually live in this world?
Those competitions get set up because some people understand the importance of mathematical knowledge and want their names attached to advances in it, even if they can't do the work themselves.
Clearly, it would be far better to make the public understand how the world, and society in particular, actually works. Only, those with the money profit from that not happening.
i have a phd in pure math. you sure i'm the one that doesn't understand this world?
A PhD is merely intended to show your ability to do research-level science. It doesn't show you know independently what to research, let alone why.
You confuse your ability to solve riddles competition-style with the answer to why you should do that in the first place.
are the mathematicians the cars here? what are you even saying? the question is whether elite mathematicians do the work they do primarily for competition and compensation or for the love of the field. now ask yourself: do F1 drivers do it primarily for the love of the sport or for the money?
> delivery drivers
people getting scooped by OAI are not the "delivery drivers" of the math world.
we will have a list of problems that AI has not been able to solve _yet_
anyone who attempts to solve it will do so knowing that there will be thousands of agents working on the same problem, so they may not be motivated to try if they think the AI swarm will get there first and have their time wasted
True, but will those be problems for mathematicians to solve, or for AI developers?
It's possible that the best thing a mathematician can do for their field is to drop what they're doing and work on AI instead.