On 18. Feb 2025, at 02:57, John Baez <john.baez@ucr.edu> wrote:
Tim Porter wrote:
There is a danger to mathematics everywhere from the thrust towards AI even though AI would not exist without the mathematics that underpins the methods there.
Thanks for pointing us to what is going on at Cardiff. Digressing, I'd like to point out that a lot of category theorists are starting to work on AI. I wrote a blog article about this trend:
https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2025/02/08/category-theorists-in-ai/
It mainly just lists people and what they are doing, though there's also an interesting story about what happened at one AI company that hired a bunch of category theorists.
Best, jb
This is an interesting blog post, thank you, John. In a detailed paper from ten years ago, Phillip Rogaway [1] sets out by comparing the situation of post-war nuclear physicists with cryptographers today. The Russell–Einstein-Manifesto from 1955 paved the road towards the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In a similar way, Rogaway argues that cryptographers do not have the luxury of working outside ethical responsibility [2] and should work toward something similar. Already as early as Alexander Grothendieck's pacifist work and his departure from the IHÉS, an argument can be made that category theorists ought to reflect on the impact of their work on military technology. One could say of course that mathematics in general has technological, societal and often military impact. But to me it seems that the contribution of category theorists to AI is a concrete and strong case, because this technology is involved in an arms race of sorts. It is closely related to the reason why the paper makes the connection to the Russell–Einstein-Manifesto. Best, Julian [1] https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1162.pdf [2] "As a cryptographer, you can ignore this landscape of power, and all political and moral dimensions of our field. But that won’t make them go away. It will just tend to make your work less relevant or socially useful." (p.47) You're receiving this message because you're a member of the Categories mailing list group from Macquarie University. To take part in this conversation, reply all to this message. View group files<https://outlook.office365.com/owa/categories@mq.edu.au/groupsubscription.ashx?source=EscalatedMessage&action=files&GuestId=6bf90c14-94d1-45b7-a0b5-9dd447734d27> | Leave group<https://outlook.office365.com/owa/categories@mq.edu.au/groupsubscription.ashx?source=EscalatedMessage&action=leave&GuestId=6bf90c14-94d1-45b7-a0b5-9dd447734d27> | Learn more about Microsoft 365 Groups<https://aka.ms/o365g>