r/mathmemes • u/beginnerflipper • 1d ago
Learning 3blue1brown just made a video about ai
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u/smartsport101 1d ago
It was a good video. Too many people are buying into OpenAI's propaganda that AI can replace humans, but you can't stop a painter from painting if they want to. And like he says, most of the money in mathematics comes from teaching, a fundamentally social career.
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u/dedservice 2h ago
Most of the money in mathematics comes from government-funded grants for professor jobs, one duty of which is teaching but the larger portion of which is research. Grant sizes are - generalizing here but in broad strokes it's correct - decided in proportion to the research impact of a professor. Not their teaching ability or quantity.
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u/fidgey10 52m ago
Seriosuly. Do people actually just have no fucking clue how academia works or what professors do? Baffling to think that the federal agencies are putting out grants with the primary end point being teaching undergrads...
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u/Jake-the-Wolfie 18h ago
Is it propoganda to believe what all AI researchers, not just OpenAI or Anthropic or whoever, are saying what their explicit goal is will be achieved? Is it propaganda to believe that humans are magically immune to being outperformed by a machine at cognitive tasks?
You may not be able to stop a painter from painting if it is their will, unless you stripped them of their ability to earn money, because their main career that funds their art hobby was ended by being replaced by AI.
As for teaching, not every mathematician has the desire to get into teaching as a career, because teaching isn't just about the material being taught. Teaching involves a wide variety of skills and tolerances that some mathematicians neither want to have nor desire to be put through. It's like saying that there's still a career for artists because they can get a job in advertising. There are some artists who love designing ads, but most would never be caught dead working in that field.
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u/BombasticReindeer 1d ago
But his video didn’t completely buy in to the Oppression Olympics angle. It found plausible ways for people to work within the industry and see it as a positive.
Instead he should have just said “this is terrible and you are all heroic for endlessly complaining about how it’s impossible to do the thing you loved anymore”.
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u/LupenReddit 🦆🦆i have non diffeomorphic smooth structures🦆🦆🦆 1d ago
i didnt really agree with everything he said, because i think he is being too optimistic, but maybe optimism is just what i need to stay motivated, so thanks grant
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u/AntimatterTNT 1d ago
certainly couldn't be blamed for hoping for a better future, unless a bunch of people listen to him then discover he was wrong.
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u/TPM2209 1d ago
He's made a bunch of videos about AI in the past, including about the internal functionality of ChatGPT. Where have you been the past three years?
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u/Curiosity_456 1d ago
OP is obviously alluding to the recent tension from the maths community regarding OpenAI’s advances, since 3blue1brown hasn’t addressed this yet…how is this the most upvoted comment here?
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u/beginnerflipper 1d ago
Yeah thought that was obviously my intent (esp with all the NS posting here lately)
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u/Curiosity_456 1d ago
Literally though haha, it’s kinda concerning that people have such little awareness these days.
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u/nilslorand 21h ago
even in the functionality video I felt he was being a little generous in his description of how LLMs "might" store facts
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u/meishodotofan445 1d ago edited 1d ago
Super optimistic video, honestly a bit too much imo. In the scenario where ai is better than humans at proofs, posing problems, building theory and finding applications, there’s no way mathematicians would exist anymore let alone have fundings to pursue it. I find it hard to see how humans would ever find math curious or worth learning in this future with exception of extremely few individuals. He does admit there’s a loss if ai overtakes humans in theory building, although this is in the far horizon for now
I do agree being social is super important right now, and we must rethink how and what we attribute credit to
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u/PressureBeautiful515 1d ago
I find it hard to see how humans would ever find math curious or worth learning in this future with exception of extremely few individuals
I can make it much easier for you to believe by sharing an amazing secret with you...
There are probably several million people in the world right now with at least a bachelors degree in mathematics. Almost none of them have discovered or will ever discover any new mathematics. There is a thing called Recreational mathematics, which is where people entertain themselves by thinking about mathematics. People do this stuff because they enjoy it, believe it or not!
I'm really interested in it myself, even though it's all stuff that other people have discovered. I'd guess pretty much everything I've ever managed to absorb was discovered 100 years ago at the most recent. It's new to me though, that's the point.
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u/Tastatura_Ratnik 1d ago
I am a third class mathematician and I can’t hope to ever make a significant discovery in my field of interest or get any form of fame, prestige or recognition. Hell, mathematics doesn’t even earn me my bread, I work in an entirely unrelated field (very happy with the job).
Nevertheless, I still very much intend to complete a PhD anyway, just because I love mathematics and I want to learn all I can about those fields that interest me. I don’t care if AI can do it better or faster than me. I don’t care if I get funded for any of it, since I can fund myself with my job. As far as I am concerned, AI folks can create a magical math oracle tomorrow and I’d still try to solve problems myself anyway, it just feels better than letting a clanker do it.
I do feel sorry for those mathematicians whose livelihood would be jeopardised due to idiotic decisions made by administration drinking the AI kool-aid. It’s very important we keep academics working, even if techno-fascists don’t like it.
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u/1-M3X1C4N 1d ago
Except the point of recreational mathematics is that it isn't a profession. You are implicitly agreeing that mathematics as an academic and professional career is over if the only left is recreational.
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u/PressureBeautiful515 23h ago
I am implicitly assuming that all knowledge work, every single desk job, as an economic necessity, is on the way out.
Strangely, I think manual labour of many kinds might take a bit longer, as robotics/physical automation is lagging behind cognition. But I think at some point robots will be taking blood samples, and eventually performing surgery.
We have to face the horrifying truth that in the future the only reason to do anything will be because we enjoy it.
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u/Jake-the-Wolfie 18h ago
Horrifying is the right word here, especially in our current society where the main reason we do anything is because it's the only means of buying the necessities of life. What does a post-worker society look like, when we can't do things that pay us?
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u/PressureBeautiful515 17h ago
Either society will collapse into rioting, looting and generally tearing itself apart, or there will be a marked increase in the popularity of redistributive economic policies.
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u/meishodotofan445 1d ago edited 1d ago
I know that, hell I'm the same too, I know there's fat chance I'm going to contribute anything big to mathematics. But I started doing math by hearing stories of "heroes" that came before us, how they dedicated years into a grueling problem to finally arrive at a result, and the centuries of buildup where people slowly made breakthroughs that led to it. Sure, maybe if i research into a problem for few years my life, it might not really lead anywhere at all other than gaining a better understanding of the problem, in which case i could communicate it with other people to inspire the next generation to pursue it. And if i do contribute a little bit, that's a huge sense of accomplishment in being able to contribute to what i love, however small it may be, and communicate my findings to lead way for the next generation of mathematicians to possibly arrive at the solution.
Its a romantic perspective on mathematics, i dont know if its silly but i do know a lot of my peers who went into math share the same feeling. With AI already doing proofs, it killed a big part of this, and if AI becomes better at every other aspect of math than us, then people like me would just give up on this field knowing everything we study is essentially pointless considering our motivations or stop at undergraduate level math
I agree that people may still do recreational math and stuff like Olympiad's would probably still exist, and there'll always be people who're simply curious about the reality we live in, but this future raises so many questions i think its silly to make assumptions on how its gonna look like
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u/PressureBeautiful515 23h ago
people like me would just give up on this field knowing everything we study is essentially pointless
Enjoying things is pointless?
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u/ILikeCake1412 18h ago
I think the point that was raised before is moreso that over time the very idea that maths is something to be enjoyed would die out.
A big part of that is also social. Me being able to share something interesting about something maybe even basic I learnt brings a sense of fulfillment.
The fear is, what if that part dies out? Sure you can still be curious about something but then youre just gonna ask ai. "Maybe I (hypothetical person in the future) could enjoy mathematics but only some small fun parts, nothing too exhausting like some proof of a big theorem. Ai would do it better anyway."
And then there'd also be no social recognition attached. Over time interest would probably wane, never die out fully because there is curiosity but definitely lessen.
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u/5tambah5 8h ago
damnn TIL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recreational_mathematics ,, felt similliar to competitive programming, some people just do it for fun even if llms "solved" all cp problems
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u/Sproxify 1d ago
Personally I do a lot of math as it is without expecting to necessarily ever discover anything that will be credited to me. If AI takes our jobs and doesn't kill us, that'll just mean I can do that forever.
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u/BassMaster516 1d ago
Mathematics is a will always exist. People will never stop trying to understand reality
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u/shy_bi_ready_to_die 1d ago
He didn’t go into it but if/when ai gets better at posing problems and building theory than mathematicians, it’s probably going to be better at basically everything humans do and that would force a massive structural change to society. Maybe fewer people would get into math, maybe people would have more free time and it causes more people to get into math, and maybe we’re all dead. There’s no way to predict much of anything accurately at that point
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u/martinkleins 1d ago edited 1d ago
there’s no way mathematicians would exist anymore let alone have funding to pursue it.
can you be specific as to what part of Grant’s analysis you think is wrong? He very specifically addresses this point with reference to where funding comes from. This comment just states “he is wrong” without mentioning any of the actual points from the video.
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u/meishodotofan445 1d ago edited 1d ago
saying there's be no mathematicians was a slight exaggeration, there'll surely be people who still want to study math for the sake of it. The funding part is silly, if we have a blob of compute that can do anything and everything for us by pouring money into it, I dont see how entities would bother funding human mathematicians when there's almost 0 roi. Its the same as now but amplified 1000 fold. But again this future raises so many other questions, its hard to predict how society would even look like at that point. Assuming academia and school still exists, i believe we would basically have to fund ourselves by teaching and other means
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u/conscious_terabot 1d ago
As he said, it'll be the same reason the arts are funded today even though there is no "direct" economic value
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u/One-Violinist6309 16h ago
there is direct economic value in the arts though, that people enjoy them and are willing to pay to consume them
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u/TriggerHappy360 11h ago
Honestly I think math will go the way of English in terms of self-justification where it will be sold as promoting critical thinking for undergraduates rather than something inherently important.
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u/AgentStabby 1d ago
"although this is in the far horizon for now" What's the far horizon? 2 years?
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u/beginnerflipper 1d ago
Similar take for me. The optimism isn't realistic, but getting out and being social is important (and maybe also help stem being replaced)
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u/Forsaken_Code_8764 1d ago edited 1d ago
Future of math how I see it after 5-10 years:
AI produces math --> mathematicians try to understand it --> get interesting ideas where to go and what questions to ask --> AI produces math --> repeat.
Era of humans coming up with proofs and calculations themselves will be over, or at least 97% will be done by AI.
The more powerful AI you have more results you get, this is what will determine which places have better math research. But math will be more accessible to the general population as a hobby.
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u/Fisyr 51m ago
I usually like to do parallel with the chess community. AI outperformed humans a while ago now. Way before deep learning was even a thing. Yet we still have chess grandmasters and humans playing. That said in terms of a career, if entire fields of science like math were to be overtaken completely by bots, how long would it take for extremely smart bots to figure out how to replace jobs that are currently considered safe such as plumbing?
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u/Sentric490 12h ago
My biggest gripe is that he said he would be surprised if policy makers decreased research funding and funneled it into AI. I can only assume he is completely disconnected from the outside world.
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u/ManufacturerNice870 8h ago
Yeah… they literally already have when you look at what things have gotten funded by the NSF lately and the “Quantum Genesis” project which is supposedly supposed to be for building fault tolerant quantum computers, and the only physics research funded, that wasn’t to a private company was to generative AI projects
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u/JollyJuniper1993 Mathematics 1h ago
Not just that, he also focuses a lot on the joy of math and seems to forget some of us also want to, you know, make a living? Maybe also outside of teaching? Maybe we don’t even have teaching qualifications? He did pay some lipservice to job security but then proceeded to forget about it for the rest of the video.
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u/mialyansa 18h ago
I think we are missing the crucial point. Discourse in this topic is too much focused in how will this affect mathematics from the perspective of the mathematician, (will it become an art/hobby and stuf). However we maybe should be focused on how will this affect the mathemathician themselves, because arts and hobbies, pretty much always require you to have some source of money, that is a job.
It is not longer an, "if AI gets better", jobs are already being affected, right now and livestyles are on the line.
If we want to talk about any human factor in maths we better look at the humans doing maths instead of what we, as humans, interpret mathematics as.
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u/Artistic_Swing6759 15h ago
So software engineers first fucked artists(who already have a hard time getting good pay) , then they fucked themselves, and now they plan to fick mathematicians.
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u/whatever_boye 1d ago
i saw the thumb and i honestly just thought mmm not really the best time and went to watch gpu coding instead
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u/AdequatlyAdequate 1d ago edited 21h ago
He is regularly sponsored by Jane St, this shouldnt be surprising to anyone.
They dont own his chanell or anything but it clearly shows that hes connected and interested in these tech/tech adjacent spaces.
Him also being interested in AI just makes sense, he probably can appreciate the math behind it, people he regularly worls with are looking for expertise in that topic and he has an audience full of people who also have an interest in the topic he talks about.
This is why he sometimes frames the Jane Street sponsor as "People like you looking for people like you", not malicious but its not a surprise to me
edit: sonce apparently people cant read: Jane Street in no way has amy control over his content, what i am saying is that it should surprise no one that he is already well known amongst Tech and industry peoplr and that hes obviously gonna be interested in AI
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u/hlhammer1001 1d ago
I wouldn’t really call Jane street malicious? They’re in it for profits, and they do often break laws, but they aren’t actively causing harm like military industrial complex
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u/AdequatlyAdequate 1d ago
Yes thats why i said „not malicious“ if you were to read closely.
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u/hlhammer1001 1d ago
You said his framing of their sponsorship wasn’t malicious, but strongly implied that the company itself is. If they weren’t, there’d be no reason to worry about the partnership that way at all
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u/AdequatlyAdequate 1d ago
Reading comprehension test:
What is my intention when I write "They dont own his channel but [..] he clearly is interested in AI" and then go on to explain how him liking AI just makes sense for various good reasons.
Literally 2 sentences in my comment could be misconstrued to mean I think its malicious, like i actually start out with the very reason I mention Jane Street.
Like the end is literally saying that is nots malicious but that someone who has worked with people in tech and likes the science behind it is very likely to also like current things in tech, that is the point of the comment. How you read whatever you think into that is beyond me3
u/Elegant_Athlete_3737 1d ago
Who or what is Jane st
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u/AdequatlyAdequate 1d ago
A quantative trading firm(not private equity, actually ahuge difference), they hire people in various stem fields and evidently 3blue1brown has proven to be a good source of canidates
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u/quantinuum 14h ago
Typically regarded as most prestigious and coveted hedge fund, besides Renaissance Technologies. Has a fame for being as world class as it gets on all technical aspects. Also ruthless. There’s all sorts of literature and passing references to them in anything involving investments, technology, etc.
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u/Many_Consequence_337 23h ago
Same problem mathematicians have had since 2022: thinking this kind of technology is stagnant, as if GPT-6 will never be smarter than current models.
AI researchers at Anthropic are already talking about recursive self-improvement around 2027–2028. AI will likely be superhuman at solving mathematical problems and explaining its results before 2030.
Math is going to become a hobby, like gardening or stamp collecting. Don’t expect to have any meaningful impact on the frontier after 2030.
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u/myhf 22h ago
Any system that reaches its limits gradually instead of instantly can be described as recursive self-improvement to a gullible enough audience.
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u/eri_is_a_throwaway 20h ago
Recursive impromevent has always been a thing since the invention of agriculture. Technology of all sorts led to us making new technology at a faster pace. Recursive self improvement on the other hand is the point where humans aren't necessary in the improvement loop any more.
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u/myhf 11h ago
Sure, it's an impressive technical achievement to build a self-healing information system, with different limits than we are used to; and it's an impressive feat of showmanship to cripple it to the level of 40-year-old theorem solvers, so it looks like improvement when it self-heals its way to the point we were at 30 years ago; and it's an impressive feat of marketing to properly typeset all these '90s-ass proofs.
But the "self-improvement" terminology is used to suggest that it has no limits, and you would have to be incredibly naïve to think that's what's going on with LLM-based technology. Of course, the most intelligent part of these agents is the engagement algorithm that keeps users in a gullible state of mind for as long as possible.
I'm not saying these things are worthless. There will always be a market for spending $20 MM on a result you could have gotten from a human for $1 MM, if it means you don't also have to set up a big organization to hire and manage the human.
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u/Vimda 21h ago
Same problem as AI bulls have had since 2022: assuming that AI will continue at its explosive rate of improvement forever, and that AI companies aren't hype driven marketing machines who will say or do anything to make the next round of funding come in
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u/Many_Consequence_337 21h ago
There’s a clear trend of improvement that you can follow. You could probably even have predicted that AI would reach human-level performance in mathematics around this year or the next couple of years.
There’s nothing magical here. The same logic applies to RSI: it could arrive within months or a few years. We’re seeing no obvious slowdown in the capabilities of these models. If anything, progress appears to have accelerated over the past six months.
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u/dBruno18 1d ago
Probably an overly optimistic video. Ultimately, it all boils down to this: ACADEMIC mathematics will never end. It's a shame the rest of the world isn't being considered. What will the entire industry, which aims to minimize costs, do? Will it continue to keep all this staff, or is it more likely that there will be significant cuts? At that point, how saturated will a homogenized academy become, given that the backbone it relies on consists of at most two models?
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u/Slight-Garden9800 1d ago
The political aspect of AI is the most important as it affects so many lives, the environment and economy directly. Any analysis that ignores it is a poor analysis, even if it’s a great analysis from the mathematical point of view.
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u/Specialist_Nobody530 1d ago
I disagree on what you consider a good analysis. I believe that good analysis can take many forms, with the main qualification being that the audience will have been illuminated in some way. A good analysis needn’t be comprehensive nor have a broad scope.
From a mathematical point of view, it’s a great analysis. For an audience that is interested in the mathematical point of view, it’s a great analysis.
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u/floriandotorg 1d ago
It’s so funny how you suddenly see all the people behind the faceless channels.
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u/lyraava 1d ago
3b1b has done public interviews with his face since 2017
he also has a video on his channel with his face from 2018 ( https://youtube.com/watch?v=Qe6o9j4IjTo )
he also did a series of livestreamed lectures with his face during COVID in 2020 (they are the only videos under the ‘Live’ tab on his channel, and in a separate playlist)
the first sentence of his about me is his full name, his face is a google search away, i don’t see how he’s ‘faceless’
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