That's how I read it too, Terry Tao, who has been a "pro-AI math guy" is going through the same emotions and confusion that us SWE folks are going through, "oh, wait... this might mean I'm not going to be special anymore!?"
I don't mean to be a dick, but I've talked about it previously. These folks are grieving. I get it, I've lived through this sort of life changing thing before, it sucks... but yeah.
I think this is ridiculously flippant. If software engineering and the hardest math is solved, that means that eventually a majority of professions and knowledge work is solved. This is hugely problematic because of the way our society currently functions. People need jobs to eat, pay for housing, etc.
Dismissing it as "innovations have happened before" is disingenuous. Yes, innovations have happened, but none of those threatened to automate all human work in existence.
> that means that eventually a majority of professions and knowledge work is solved. This is hugely problematic because of the way our society currently functions.
Our society has functioned very differently in the past, precisely because the technology level made some things viable (or profitable) that aren't so anymore.
One would hope that, rather than abandoning technological progress, we'll rather adjust our society to it.
I mean, seriously, read what you just wrote. You're literally saying that solving scarcity is a problem because of the way our society currently functions - because people "need jobs to eat, pay for housing, etc". And you're correct! But what does it tell you about our society that robots capable of producing everything that humans might need is a problem for it?
Yeah given he had been very pro-AI for years, I expected he made peace with the issue many many years ago (like I did back in 2018), and when this time would come he would explain to other mathematicians how to live with it.
I don't mean to be a dick, but I've talked about it previously. These folks are grieving. I get it, I've lived through this sort of life changing thing before, it sucks... but yeah.