John Carlos Baez on Nostr: "What is for us humans the act of doing mathematics? I’d say mathematics is two ...

"What is for us humans the act of doing mathematics? I’d say mathematics is two very
important things at once: a language to make sense of reality and a form of self-expression,
much like the arts. When seen from this perspective, the existence of artificial intelligences
that can generate solutions to mathematical problems becomes essentially irrelevant, and
is just left to individuals and their ethical considerations whether to regard AI as a useful
scientific tool, an opaque proprietary instrument of corporate greed and oppression, a new
possibility for increased accessibility, an uncontrollable danger, or all of the above at once.

[...]

So don’t ask yourself which are the Big Problems™ and Famous Conjectures™ you should be working on and what is your reason of existence now that an artificial intelligence can get them before you’ve even finished your morning coffee. Ask yourself rather what is the mathematics that lives only inside you and nowhere else. The one that makes you dream, like the music that no-one has ever heard, that wakes you up in the middle of the night, playing itself inside your head, and demanding to be written."

I think this is a healthy and sane attitude. I've never tried to prove Famous Conjectures™; instead I just think about things that are interesting but don't quite make sense, until I get a picture that makes sense. This picture always has rough edges, and I try to fill those in, and gradually it grows. By now it's very big and fairly often I come upon new thoughts that are brand new to the world - though more often I rediscover things that are already known. I'm happy with both: either way, the world is making more sense. And I try to explain what I learn.