"Mathematicians are Feeling the Doom" by alkjash

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"Mathematicians are Feeling the Doom" by alkjash

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I think there's a critical opportunity for someone here.

Mathematicians are feeling the doom (mostly in the "lose our jobs" sense).

Academics are freaking out about the daily news that amateurs are asking GPT "prove career-defining theorem, make no mistakes" and it's just working.

Senior researchers are leaving for frontier AI labs. Many are mentally spiralling or flailing about their life's work not mattering anymore.

Last year, when I tried explaining IABIED to colleagues, I would be met with incredulous stares. This year, I'm met with incredulous stares and "So what should I do now?" (I don't have a good answer for them, which is part of why I'm posting this.)

I've quarantined AI discussions on my research discord because otherwise it would overwhelm everything else.

Top mathematicians, people on par in mathematical ability with Critch, Christiano, and Steinhardt, people who have been running leading-edge research groups for decades, people with enormous soft power in academic circles, are going to OpenAI without even having considered x-risk for five minutes.

Many more will be leaving soon.

If you want these folks to hear something at all, to consider some other option in the rest [...]

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First published:
July 23rd, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zKCGq2bbCQrpCNc3W/mathematicians-are-feeling-the-doom

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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