Should Mathoverflow take a stand against AI?

Question

I am a mathematician with a PhD from 2016 and a long-term user of this website, though I've not been active of late.

I am wondering, should Mathoverflow take a stand against Stackexchange for their use of AI? I believe AI is fundamentally damaging in the long-term to society in many ways, some of which are:

1. AI removes human connection from the equation of information sharing. Sharing ideas and information is a fundamental cohesive force in our society and sharing information has always been about two things: the information itself, and developing relationships with other people. AI removes the latter, and creates a world where information sharing is anonymous. Of course, Stackexchange's initial foray into AI isn't a complete replacement, but it is an augmentation that will significantly distort human interaction in a negative way and eventually lead to a greater degree of anonymity.
2. AI on a greater societal level is poised to take over almost every sort of creative job, including professor. Previous technologies have never been so poised to take over so many creative jobs. Of course, it's unlikely that AI will be able to do mathematics research any time soon (though it may do so in the future), but as we all know, mathematics is primarily a service department for other sciences and soon that function will be eliminated.
3. In the long term, AI taking away jobs such as math professor, artist, and writer, will cause a mass loss of purpose in life and thus a mass wave of depression and lack of direction for humanity. Jobs will be increasingly meaningless, existing merely to further developing more advanced AI systems. The original motivations of research were curiosity and improving the human condition, but we are reaching a tipping point where those values will be stripped from us.
4. With great power comes great responsibility, as the saying goes. We hardly have the ability to handle basic power with responsibility (c.f. fossil fuels, the internet). AI is simply too powerful to be used with responsibility by humanity.

In closing, as mathematicians, we have a special viewpoint about the world. We can envision complex systems and far-reaching consequences. And, if we look at such consequences, we must conclude that AI is not just about some minor improvements to search and answers on Stackexchange (the short-term), but about the long-term societal effects of making the world devoid of human connections because removing such connections is the most efficient optimum for big-tech companies to concentrate the wealth of the world into the hands of the few.

Thus, I believe that Mathoverflow should take a stand against AI and do everything possible to remove Mathoverflow from the Stackexchange network. Of course, this might have some short-term pains, but it would send a serious message that society at large should be more wary of what is going on.

Answer 1

From the voting for this question and from the comments to this question, we can conclude that the MO community is not in favor of Jason's proposal. MO should be a place that is welcoming to professional mathematicians, and this means that MO should not have an official stance on issues that will make MO less welcoming to professional mathematicians.

It is not practical for MO to take a stand against AI in general or even for particular uses of AI even if we want to take that stand. MO has a search bar for searching for questions and answers, and all search engines use AI in one form of another. Even the process of doing basic research when searching for an answer uses AI since one will need to interact with a search engine outside MO. One can often use gradient ascent/descent in order to search for counterexamples or figure out constants (especially in linear algebra), and one can use simulated annealing and evolutionary computation to produce counterexamples to conjectures. On this site, we are also able to ask and answer questions directly about AI, and we are able to have discussions about AI too.

When trying to mitigate the risks imposed by AI, one has to carefully consider which strategies one should employ. Taking a stand against AI is unlikely to be effective since AI will develop and progress regardless of whether we want it to or not. A stand against AI development will simply allow some groups to progress unimpeded while other groups will be stifled, and this effort will result in inequality and less AI safety. If one wants to slow down AI progress, then one should have worked on AI safety earlier, and one now needs to work harder on AI safety. While we may not be able to stop or slow down the development of AI, we can certainly steer the development of AI into a safer or more friendly direction. The MO community can do things individually and collectively to improve AI safety. The individuals here can read about AI safety so they know what others think about the risks of AI. After reading about AI safety, we may be willing and able to perform mathematical research that will improve AI safety. The community here can ask and answer questions about AI safety. The community can have a high level discussion about AI safety. But to have questions, answers, and discussions about AI safety here in the first place, AI cannot be banned from MO.

I have created an AI safety chat room here on MO in case anyone is interested.

If you are interested in AI safety, make sure to take care of yourself.