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nylonstrung • today at 10:00 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

I think too much credit in the AI math discussion is being given to LLMs rather than to Lean, which an incredibly well designed language around which Mathlib coalesced as a side-effect of it's capability

I doubt of this progress could have been made without the specific combination of Lean + Mathlib. Automatic Theorem Provers are not a new idea, but we don't see these breakthroughs happening with any other stack


Replies

j2kun • today at 10:56 PM

> rather than to Lean

Indeed, I don't think anyone should be led to believe that AI can do math on its own without _some_ kind of oracle providing extremely rigorous feedback.

erichocean • today at 10:38 PM

> which Mathlib coalesced as a side-effect of it's capability

Eh, Lean was heavily developed based on feedback from mathematicians; it's not a side-effect but more like a "driving force."

Source: one of Lean's co-authors.