As a software engineer, I can accept AI-generated code because the code is not the point of software; the point is software that works, and the code is just a means to an end. Code is usually a terrible mess and essentially no one just reads code, like, for fun. In the spirit of this article, I would love for someone more knowledgeable to articulate what the end product of mathematics is. Is it, as this article mentions, the abstractions that it produces? I've always been fascinated by how the Fourier transform and the quaternion were invented as part of pure math and then used for computer graphics stuff over a century later. To put it another way: should the proofs of theorems that AI is now generating actually be considered end products of mathematics, or are they turning out to be more of a step along the way to developing mathematical ideas, kind of like the code in software engineering?
As a software engineer, I can accept AI-generated code because the code is not the point of software; the point is software that works, and the code is just a means to an end. Code is usually a terrible mess and essentially no one just reads code, like, for fun. In the spirit of this article, I would love for someone more knowledgeable to articulate what the end product of mathematics is. Is it, as this article mentions, the abstractions that it produces? I've always been fascinated by how the Fourier transform and the quaternion were invented as part of pure math and then used for computer graphics stuff over a century later. To put it another way: should the proofs of theorems that AI is now generating actually be considered end products of mathematics, or are they turning out to be more of a step along the way to developing mathematical ideas, kind of like the code in software engineering?
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