What a time to be alive! Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was practically a bible to my cold-war veteran physics-nerd 11-year-old self, discovering it during a Radio4 rebroadcast of the first series and subsequently stealing the paperback book from my sister (who didn’t really get it) – and I have the books, the LPs, recordings of the show on C60 cassette tapes, various other media…

And now it’s all coming true!

Compare (edited for brevity)

FOOK: What’s the problem?

MAJIKTHISE: I’ll tell you what the problem is mate: demarcation. That’s the problem.

VROOMFONDEL: We demand that demarcation may or may not be the problem.

MAJIKTHISE: You just let the machines get on with the adding up and we’ll take care of the eternal verities, thank you very much. By law the quest for the ultimate truth is quite clearly the unalienable prerogative of your working thinkers

VROOMFONDEL: We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!

To:

Terence Tao

tao@mathstodon.xyz

As Hugo Duminil-Copin wrote recently at https://proofsandprompts.com/2026/08/30/care-for-a-little-more-ai/ , the indiscriminate automated strip-mining of open problems for solutions may destroy the ecosystem from which the next generation of mathematical techniques, problems, and practitioners would have developed, similarly to how using excavators to dig out treasures from an archeological site destroys the rich historical context and data that gives such treasures so much of their meaning and value.

It may become necessary to declare certain classes of mathematical problems off-limits to automated solvers, in order to preserve their broader value to the mathematical ecosystem (for instance, through the training of future mathematicians). Admittedly this can be hard to enforce when such tools are both powerful and widely available. But then again, society has been somewhat successful at using social pressure to discourage, say, widespread spoiling of upcoming movies. Perhaps it can become viable to maintain such protected mathematical sites if one simultaneously opens up other classes of problems as suitable for directing this new AI capability towards. (3/3)

2026/09/03, 03:15 25 boosts 48 favorites

If you’re not familiar with 1970s British Trade Union language, “demarcation disputes” were/are turf wars between trade unions (or even individual employees) where one party claims that another party is “taking their job” thereby putting their continued employment at risk; for instance newspaper print-typesetters fearing the arrival of IT nerds with software that would replace (or, even worse, dissolve the need for) them.

Fear Is The Mind-Killer

SOMETHING MUST BE DONE! pic.twitter.com/3l9ucf97s5

— Alec Muffett (@AlecMuffett) September 2, 2026

pic.twitter.com/BGRK7rn5t5

— Alec Muffett (@AlecMuffett) September 3, 2026

I have been watching the AI Wars play out for several years with this at the back of my mind, but until today I did not believe that anyone in the academy would be daft enough to suggest such a thing; absolutely we can expect technophobe gammons in the House of Lords and the US Senate to demand “AI Kill Switches” to stop people doing math… but I honestly never expected an actual mathematician to propose the same.

Via:

Terence Tao: "It may become necessary to declare certain classes of mathematical problems off-limits to automated solvers, in order to preserve their broader value to the mathematical ecosystem (for instance, through the training of future mathematicians). Admittedly this can be hard to enforce"
byu/GeneReddit123 inmathematics