the problem is that in order to make this argument terry had to claim that the *real point* of mathematics is *not* to solve problems but to produce "conceptual understanding and insight" - implicitly, nearly exclusively in the minds of mathematicians, since nearly nobody else can understand what they're doing. this is not how literally any other academic field of study justifies its own existence. physics, chemistry, biology, history, literature, philosophy - academic fields are supposed to produce outputs that matter to the *public*, or else there's no reason they should be supported by the public and public organizations it is completely reasonable for anyone who's not a mathematician to look at this and ask: why are you guys admitting out loud that solving mathematical problems doesn't accomplish anything directly? what are you spending all your time doing then? if mathematical problems are useless then why aren't you solving problems that actually matter in other fields?
Image from QC (@QiaochuYuan)
male manipulator (reformed) (@MaleManlpulator) profile picturemale manipulator (reformed)@MaleManlpulatorSep 11
He’s saying AI labs are Goodhart-ing mathematics but you midwits are too stupid to understand. To put it in simple terms: millennium prize problems are *metrics* for mathematics progress. AI labs are *optimizing* the metrics and thereby making them less useful. Get it now?
133
72
49
1,154
92,921
this guy gets it! nitter.cf/PosterInternet/status/…
internet poster (@PosterInternet) profile pictureinternet poster@PosterInternetSep 13
Replying to @PosterInternet
…it should also be understood that research mathematicians have broadly been successful at a sleight-of-hand in which they are funded by the public to do mostly useless math and justify it based on a handful of research avenues that that had unexpected real-world applications.

Sep 13, 2026 · 2:20 AM UTC

4
1
29
2,442
RelevantRecentLikes
definitely took some inspiration from your tweet above in writing that, but I think this is also something that should be pretty obvious to anyone who immerses themselves in academic math for some period of time and subsequently gets some distance from it
4
105
I mean this is true for most of science. It’s not atypical for a molecular biologist to devote their professional life to studying some particular protein no one really knows or cares about, and their results are published maybe to one day happen to be of use to someone somehow
1
43
I confess that I had been under the lazy impression that stuff filtered down from mathematics into physics and comp sci and whatnot on a relatively regular basis, and while I am not exactly surprised to learn this is not the case, it does require a certain amount of recalibration
1
1
93
I’m thinking the Sophons are already here by browsing comments
26