{"id":20922,"date":"2025-01-28T07:00:29","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T08:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20922"},"modified":"2025-01-28T08:27:41","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T08:27:41","slug":"in-seattle-a-meeting-of-5444-mathematical-minds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20922","title":{"rendered":"In Seattle, a Meeting of 5,444 Mathematical Minds"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Participants at this year\u2019s Joint Mathematics Meetings explored everything from the role of A.I. to the hyperbolic design of a patchwork denim skirt.<\/p>\n

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The world\u2019s largest gathering of mathematicians convened in Seattle from Jan. 8 to Jan. 11 \u2014 5,444 mathematicians, 3,272 talks. This year the program diverged somewhat from the its traditional kaleidoscopic panorama. An official theme, \u201cMathematics in the Age of A.I.,\u201d was set by Bryna Kra, the president of the American Mathematical Society, which hosts the event in collaboration with 16 partner organizations. In one configuration or another, the meeting, called the Joint Mathematics Meetings, or the J.M.M., has been held more or less annually for over a century.<\/p>\n

Dr. Kra intended the A.I. theme as a \u201cwake-up call.\u201d \u201cA.I. is something that is in our lives, and it\u2019s time to start thinking about how it impacts your teaching, your students, your research,\u201d she said in an interview with The New York Times. \u201cWhat does it mean to have A.I. as a co-author? These are the kinds of questions that we have to grapple with.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the second evening, Yann LeCun, the chief A.I. scientist at Meta, gave a keynote lecture titled \u201cMathematical Obstacles on the Way to Human-Level A.I.\u201d Dr. LeCun got a bit into the technical weeds, but there were digestible tidbits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current state of machine learning is that it sucks,\u201d he said during the lecture, to much chortling. \u201cNever mind humans, never mind trying to reproduce mathematicians or scientists; we can\u2019t even reproduce what a cat can do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Instead of the generative large language models powering chatbots, he argued, a \u201clarge-scale world model<\/a>\u201d would be the better bet for advancing and improving the technology. Such a system, he said in an interview after the lecture, \u201ccan reason and plan because it has a mental model of the world that predicts consequences of its action.\u201d But there are obstacles, he admitted \u2014 some mathematically intractable problems, their solutions nowhere in sight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Yann LeCun, the chief A.I. scientist at Meta, said \u201cthe current state of machine learning is that it sucks.\u201d<\/span>Fabrice Coffrini\/Agence France-Presse \u2014 Getty Images<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Participants at this year\u2019s Joint Mathematics Meetings explored everything from the role of A.I. to the hyperbolic design of a patchwork denim skirt.The world\u2019s largest gathering of mathematicians convened in Seattle from Jan. 8 to Jan. 11 \u2014 5,444 mathematicians, 3,272 talks. This year the program diverged somewhat from the its traditional kaleidoscopic panorama. An official theme, \u201cMathematics in the Age of A.I.,\u201d was set by Bryna Kra, the president of the American Mathematical Society, which hosts the event in collaboration with 16 partner organizations. In one configuration or another, the meeting, called the Joint Mathematics Meetings, or the J.M.M., has been held more or less annually for over a century.Dr. Kra intended the A.I. theme as a \u201cwake-up call.\u201d \u201cA.I. is something that is in our lives, and it\u2019s time to start thinking about how it impacts your teaching, your students, your research,\u201d she said in an interview with The New York Times. \u201cWhat does it mean to have A.I. as a co-author? These are the kinds of questions that we have to grapple with.\u201dOn the second evening, Yann LeCun, the chief A.I. scientist at Meta, gave a keynote lecture titled \u201cMathematical Obstacles on the Way to Human-Level A.I.\u201d Dr. LeCun got a bit into the technical weeds, but there were digestible tidbits.\u201cThe current state of machine learning is that it sucks,\u201d he said during the lecture, to much chortling. \u201cNever mind humans, never mind trying to reproduce mathematicians or scientists; we can\u2019t even reproduce what a cat can do.\u201dInstead of the generative large language models powering chatbots, he argued, a \u201clarge-scale world model\u201d would be the better bet for advancing and improving the technology. Such a system, he said in an interview after the lecture, \u201ccan reason and plan because it has a mental model of the world that predicts consequences of its action.\u201d But there are obstacles, he admitted \u2014 some mathematically intractable problems, their solutions nowhere in sight.Yann LeCun, the chief A.I. scientist at Meta, said \u201cthe current state of machine learning is that it sucks.\u201dFabrice Coffrini\/Agence France-Presse \u2014 Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20924,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20922"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20925,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20922\/revisions\/20925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}