A math professor at University of California, Berkeley, says there is “no point” in grading his students’ homework because they all use artificial intelligence to solve the problems.
Richard Borcherds told the Daily Californian that he currently grades based on completion rather than correctness, since AI is so widespread that all of his pupils have access to it.
The professor acknowledged it was not a very good system, but he said he’s currently at a loss for alternatives.
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“If AI continues to improve at present rate, then, in a few years, there’ll be nothing human mathematicians can do that AI can’t do better,” Mr. Borcherds said.
Mr. Borcherds, who won the prestigious Fields Medal in 1998, said the rapid advancement of AI could mean massive disruptions for his field. It’s a stark change from his thinking just five years ago, when he thought mathematics would be insulated from AI.
In a sardonic turn, he said he even asked ChatGPT what advice he should give students who want to pursue a future in math. He said the AI chatbot offered little help.
“There have been plenty of technical breakthroughs in the past — hand weaving was put out of business by looms, and horses were put out of business by motor cars, and so on,” Mr. Borcherds said. “This is the first time anything like this has happened in mathematics, though.”
Mr. Borcherd’s stance follows OpenAI’s announcement that its artificial intelligence solved a 90-year-old Navier-Stokes equation. The problem demands mathematicians to predict the behavior of fluids and gases under extreme conditions.
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