The most recent case of the finite time solution of the forced Navier-Stokes equation has been discussed a lot in the recent days, on this network and in the mainstream press, but I will try to give a perspective on what happened recently.
This is prompted by a friend informing me this morning of two annoying additional stories that taint the recent public success of AI generated proofs and will hopefully lead the mathematical community to address the question of predation and plagiarism.
However, I won't address here the even more important questions posed by AI companies beyond merely quoting some of them:
- its energetic cost;
- its impact on minerals and other natural resources;
- its direct and immediate consequences on the ecosystem (water heating, pollution, land waterproofing, etc.);
- its impact on the work market, in particular those prompted by (actual or alleged) productivity gains;
- its impact on learning, cognition, etc.;
- its impact on the economic structure, tremendous announced gains/losses of companies that look like a Ponzi scheme;
- its impact on the power structure, who owns what, who gives access to what;
- its impact on the political structure, the surveillance capitalism, etc.
These are fundamental issues that should be addressed more clearly in the mainstream medias, and that, in my view, suffice to object to the existence of AI.
Anyway, what does it mean for academic math?
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