Scott Aaronson: The Mathocalypse, Will Intelligence Matter Anymore?
Show notes
Scott Aaronson is one of the world's leading quantum computing researchers and spent two years at OpenAI working on AI safety.
We talked about why he thinks the singularity has already begun for math, who gets credit when AI writes the proof, and whether intelligence will still matter once machines do the thinking.
• My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: https://read.compose.llc/
• The Kickstarter page for it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-simple-ergonomics-beautifully-done
Podcast links:
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORlscppGGh4
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835
• Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/e070-scott-aaronson
Thank you to this episode's sponsor for supporting my work:
• WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at https://workos.com/
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:34) Why he updated so hard on AI
(01:14) The people still denying AI progress
(03:53) The singularity has already begun for math
(08:30) Will human-driven math research survive
(13:12) Who gets credit for AI-written papers
(15:55) OpenAI's $15M Navier-Stokes proof
(19:20) What if AI proved P = NP
(23:07) Why AI is so good at finding counterexamples
(26:13) The goalposts keep moving
(28:52) Why AI disclosure matters in research
(32:59) The fake Monet experiment
(35:23) Why he blogs instead of getting rich
(39:45) Are AI labs racing too fast
(42:01) Will intelligence still matter
(47:12) Book recommendations
(52:27) Advice for students today
(57:23) Reacting live to a new AI result
(59:58) Outro
Where to find Scott:
• Personal website: https://www.scottaaronson.com/
• Blog — Shtetl-Optimized: https://scottaaronson.blog/
• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Aaronson
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman
Referenced in this episode:
• OpenAI's Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize solution: https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/32d9f210-8b73-45e0-91bc-82a30aef8a9a/navier-stokes.pdf
• Rebecca Goldstein's The Mind-Body Problem: https://rebeccagoldstein.com/the-mind-body-problem-contemporary-american-fiction/
• Andrew Hodges's Alan Turing: The Enigma: https://www.turing.org.uk/book/
• The Man Who Knew Infinity: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Man-Who-Knew-Infinity/Robert-Kanigel/9781476763491
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76
• Anthropic's subquadratic 3SUM result: https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.06783