Bev Littlewood Invokes Augustine After AI Solves Navier-Stokes Problem, Challenging Mathematicians' Unease
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Sep 25
Bev Littlewood Invokes Augustine After AI Solves Navier-Stokes Problem, Challenging Mathematicians' Unease
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Sep 25
Summary
Bev Littlewood argued that mathematicians unsettled by AI's solution to a Navier-Stokes problem are confronting a revolution their own field helped create.
Augustine's quote warning against mathematicians who "make empty promises" framed his point that mathematics has been the prime mover behind modern AI.
Littlewood, emeritus professor of software engineering at City St George’s, University of London, wrote in response to a Guardian editorial on whether humans remain vital to mathematics.
The letter casts the AI breakthrough less as an external threat than as a consequence of mathematics' central role in building the technology now challenging the discipline.