It's here! Minhyong Kim is head of the International Centre of Mathematical Sciences, a place in Edinburgh that holds workshops. Often these focus on pure math. But when I was visiting Edinburgh, he said he wanted to fund proposals for workshops on
A. Integrating the global research community
B. Mathematical challenges for humanity
C. The global history of mathematics
Now they're doing it! Propose a workshop before April 15th!
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https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2023/01/26/mathematics-for-humanity/
I mainly talked to Minhyong about "Mathematical challenges for humanity", which will host collaborative projects, workshops, seminars, courses, and schools dealing with ways that mathematicians can help humanity face many urgent problems.
Now that I'm on the scientific committee of this initiative, I look forward to reviewing proposals for workshops subjects including BUT NOT LIMITED TO the ones listed here! These are just examples:
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@johncarlosbaez IMO most of the problems in this list are political and not mathematical in nature. For example safeguards for AI: even if we get some mathematical solutions, I don't see them being used by the companies that make AI systems unless it is profitable to do so, or they are mandated by governments. Not to mention that legislating those mandates is a really difficult problem.
@pexlibanis @johncarlosbaez More mathematicians should strive to communicate that AI is not a mysterious "black box." This falls perhaps outside the day-to-day of pure mathematician, but it's important for reasons you mention. The technologists (many of whom do not understand AI) have successfully blackboxified AI/ML, conveniently convincing the public that you can't regulate it or even ask what it's doing, because NoBoDy KnoWs HoW iT WorkS. De-blackboxifying AI would be a great public service.
