Gary Marcus(@GaryMarcus):If you think that a letter from 25 Field Medalists is about “cope” or keeping their jobs, you are mistaken. It is about beauty and insight and the fear that brute force cherry picking with mostly incomprehensible proofs (perhaps combined with a bit of IP theft) is going to undermine the field that they love, in the same way that slop has undermined the joy in other fields. Terence Tao has been quite clear about this in a series of elegant Mathstodon posts (which I have excerpted here and in my Substack) over the last several days. I advise anyone unclear about the above to read his posts (or my excerpts) to get context.

2026.09.12 02:50

If you think that a letter from 25 Field Medalists is about “cope” or keeping their jobs, you are mistaken. It is about beauty and insight and the fear that brute force cherry picking with mostly incomprehensible proofs (perhaps combined with a bit of IP theft) is going to undermine the field that they love, in the same way that slop has undermined the joy in other fields. Terence Tao has been quite clear about this in a series of elegant Mathstodon posts (which I have excerpted here and in my Substack) over the last several days. I advise anyone unclear about the above to read his posts (or my excerpts) to get context.

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