Fwd: Cardiff crisis

Fwd: Cardiff crisis

[Timothy Porter]

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There is a threat of effective closure for the mathematics department in Cardiff.

There is a danger to mathematics everywhere from the thrust towards AI even though AI would not exist without the mathematics that underpins the methods there. I am forwarding more information via links to an article and also to the Open Letter that has been sent by the President of the London Mathematical Society.

(The message was forwarded to me by Prof. David Evans of Cardiff.)


Please sign if you feel you can support Cardiff, and also share it around in your own universities.

Thanks,

Tim





---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: David Evans <EvansDE@cardiff.ac.uk<mailto:EvansDE@cardiff.ac.uk>>
There is a crisis in mathematics at Cardiff with the university  plan of  reduction of pure and applied mathematics faculty from 30 to 15-10 as well as reducing the number of mathematics students. The LMS are leading the resistance and I am forwarding  below a message from the President.
I hope that you will consider signing this open letter mentioned by him.
Some details about the situation are here
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/cardiff-university-planned-cuts-risk-30982105<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/PQCJCNLJxki09xyqOimfkTyEzjR?domain=walesonline.co.uk>
Best wishes
David Evans FLSW

[please sign this petition and forward on to your professional network]
Urgent support for colleagues at Cardiff University
Dear Colleague,
I am writing to you in my role as President of the London Mathematical Society and Chair of the Campaign for the Mathematical Sciences.
Cardiff University is threatening up to half of its staff in pure and applied mathematics with compulsory redundancy, despite the department returning a significant surplus to the university.
As part of our campaign to avert these redundancies, we are now launching an open letter which can be viewed here:
https://tinyurl.com/2vjxurb9<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/0X4cCOMK7YcpwXQL7fvhATG7tCZ?domain=tinyurl.com>
If you are supportive and would like to sign, please fill in this form:
https://forms.gle/bqwZXMkajEVbucWe7<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/Cl9QCP7L1NfKZmV1jh1iGTxEUJu?domain=forms.gle>
Your name should then automatically appear on the letter (refresh the form).
Feel free to forward this message to your professional network.
With many thanks for your support.
Best wishes,
Jens
Professor Jens Marklof FRS
Henry Overton Wills Chair, University of Bristol
President, London Mathematical Society
Chair, Campaign for the Mathematical Sciences







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Category theorists in AI

[John Baez]

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Tim Porter wrote:

> There is a danger to mathematics everywhere from the thrust towards AI even though AI would not exist without the mathematics that underpins the methods there.

Thanks for pointing us to what is going on at Cardiff.   Digressing, I'd like to point out that a lot of category theorists are starting to work on AI.   I wrote a blog article about this trend:

https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2025/02/08/category-theorists-in-ai/<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/__m2CZY146s5xwgvXczf0TBCvK0?domain=johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/>

It mainly just lists people and what they are doing, though there's also an interesting story about what happened at one AI company that hired a bunch of category theorists.

Best,
jb




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Re: Category theorists in AI

[Julian Rohrhuber]

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> On 18. Feb 2025, at 02:57, John Baez <john.baez@ucr.edu> wrote:
>
> Tim Porter wrote:
>
> > There is a danger to mathematics everywhere from the thrust towards AI even though AI would not exist without the mathematics that underpins the methods there.
>
> Thanks for pointing us to what is going on at Cardiff. Digressing, I'd like to point out that a lot of category theorists are starting to work on AI. I wrote a blog article about this trend:
>
> https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2025/02/08/category-theorists-in-ai/<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/QBM-CXLW6DiXGRV3WUDiJTW7wig?domain=johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com>
>
> It mainly just lists people and what they are doing, though there's also an interesting story about what happened at one AI company that hired a bunch of category theorists.
>
> Best,
> jb

This is an interesting blog post, thank you, John.

In a detailed paper from ten years ago, Phillip Rogaway [1] sets out by comparing the situation of post-war nuclear physicists with cryptographers today. The Russell–Einstein-Manifesto from 1955 paved the road towards the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In a similar way, Rogaway argues that cryptographers do not have the luxury of working outside ethical responsibility [2] and should work toward something similar.

Already as early as Alexander Grothendieck's pacifist work and his departure from the IHÉS, an argument can be made that category theorists ought to reflect on the impact of their work on military technology. One could say of course that mathematics in general has technological, societal and often military impact. But to me it seems that the contribution of category theorists to AI is a concrete and strong case, because this technology is involved in an arms race of sorts. It is closely related to the reason why the paper makes the connection to the Russell–Einstein-Manifesto.

Best,
Julian


[1] https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1162.pdf<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/XK56CYW86EsLgqEPwcVsLTx8wot?domain=eprint.iacr.org>
[2] "As a cryptographer, you can ignore this landscape of power, and all political and moral dimensions of our field. But that won’t make them go away. It will just tend to make your work less relevant or socially useful." (p.47)





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