The Simons Foundation has announced a new set of initiatives to help the mathematics community navigate the rapid rise of artificial intelligence in the field. Under a partnership with Anthropic and Open AI, the foundation will commit $15 million in combined funding and resources.
The foundation will manage and award the funding, including through an open call for proposals. The money will support workshops and initiatives that help researchers evaluate recent AI-assisted results, learn and use new tools, share perspectives, and shape collective standards for AI use. Simons Foundation President David Spergel said that as artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes the research landscape, the goal is to help the mathematical community come together and forge the best path forward.
Anthropic and Open AI will also provide AI tools and computing resources to researchers supported by the foundation, extending beyond mathematics to basic science. The awards and resources will be community-driven and build on the foundation's decades-long support for mathematics. The foundation was an early backer of machine learning for science, including funding development of the Lean proof assistant, which has revolutionized how mathematicians work and made AI-assisted proofs possible.
Spergel stressed that the community, not any single company or institution, should drive discussions about how these tools are evaluated, adopted and used. The program's goal, he said, is to support the mathematics community as a whole.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing