Yi Ma and Yann LeCun spar over automation's coming reshaping of mathematics
CSProfKGD · x · 2026-10-09
HKU's Yi Ma argues that automating deduction and programming benefits both math and CS, and that "Applied Mathematics"—in a broad new sense—will take center stage, building theoretical foundations for intelligence and life as math once did for physics.
Yann LeCun pushes back in a quote-tweet: a new era is opening where formal proof is largely automated, shifting mathematicians toward new concepts, abstractions, definitions, and conjectures. His metaphor: the invention of the boat reduced the importance of swimming but enabled the discovery of new lands.
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