Much of the discussion here seems focused on the Lean part/correctness, but it sure looks like for Tao its the rapid iteration on the _paper_ that's the important part:
> ... to me, the more interesting capability revealed by these events is the ability to rapidly write and rewrite new versions of a text as needed, even if one was not the original author of the argument.
> This is sharp contrast to existing practice where the effort required to produce even one readable manuscript is quite time-consuming, and subsequent revisions (in response to referee reports, for instance) are largely confined to local changes (e.g., modifying the proof of a single lemma), with large-scale reworking of the paper often avoided due both to the work required and the large possibility of introducing new errors. However, the combination of reasonably competent AI text generation and modification capabilities, paired with the ability of formal proof assistants to verify the informal arguments thus generated, allows for a much more dynamic and high-multiplicity conception of what a writeup of an argument is, with the ability for individual participants to rapidly create tailored expositions of the argument at whatever level of rigor and precision is desired.
Of course this implies that the math works which is the Aristotle part, and that's great ... but this rebuts the "but this isn't AI by itself, this is AI and a bunch of experts working hard, nothing to see here": right, well even "experts working hard" fail to iterate on the paper which significantly hinders research progress.
> ... to me, the more interesting capability revealed by these events is the ability to rapidly write and rewrite new versions of a text as needed, even if one was not the original author of the argument.
> This is sharp contrast to existing practice where the effort required to produce even one readable manuscript is quite time-consuming, and subsequent revisions (in response to referee reports, for instance) are largely confined to local changes (e.g., modifying the proof of a single lemma), with large-scale reworking of the paper often avoided due both to the work required and the large possibility of introducing new errors. However, the combination of reasonably competent AI text generation and modification capabilities, paired with the ability of formal proof assistants to verify the informal arguments thus generated, allows for a much more dynamic and high-multiplicity conception of what a writeup of an argument is, with the ability for individual participants to rapidly create tailored expositions of the argument at whatever level of rigor and precision is desired.
Of course this implies that the math works which is the Aristotle part, and that's great ... but this rebuts the "but this isn't AI by itself, this is AI and a bunch of experts working hard, nothing to see here": right, well even "experts working hard" fail to iterate on the paper which significantly hinders research progress.