Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
And we had previous software tools that can work at scale, but very narrow.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
So we have to figure out how to use... I mean, so Tim Gower, like you mentioned, he actually foresaw, like in 2000, he was envisioning what mathematics would look like in actually two and a half decades.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
And he wrote in his article, like a hypothetical conversation between
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
a mathematical assistant of the future and himself, you know, he's trying to solve a problem and they would have a conversation.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
Sometimes the human would propose an idea and the AI would evaluate it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
And sometimes the AI would propose an idea and sometimes a competition was required and AI would just go and say, okay, I've checked the 100 cases needed here.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
Or the first, you said this is true for all N, I've checked N up to 100 and it looks good so far.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
Or hang on, there's a problem at N equals 46.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
And so just a free-form conversation where you don't know in advance where things are going to go, but just based on, I think ideas are good to propose on both sides, calculations are good to propose on both sides.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
I've had conversations with AI where I say, okay, we're going to collaborate to solve this math problem.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
And it's a problem that I already know the solution to.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
So I try to prompt it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
Okay, so here's the problem.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
I suggest using this tool.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
And it'll find this lovely argument using a completely different tool, which eventually goes into the weeds and say, no, no, no, try using this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
Okay.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
And it might start using this and then it'll go back to the tool that it wanted to do before.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
And you have to keep railroading it onto the path you want.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
And I could eventually force it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#472 β Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI
to give the proof I wanted.