Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote in 1797 the “Sourcerer’s apprentice” (der Zauberlehrling). This poem one of the most famous allegories of all times, especially after being featured in the masterpiece “Fantasia” of Walt Disney in 2000. The story is is very relevant today, for obvious reasons. I got reminded about this today on May 21st, 2026, while reading some news articles in the context of mathematics. A breakthrough in the planar unit distance problem from the year 1946 has just been solved by AI. I read it here today on May 21, 2026. Then, also today, one cold read an article about Terrence Tao, who now sounds completely different than just a few months ago. He is quoted as “proofs are no more the most important thing” (article in the Standard, also from May 21, 2026). Tao of course has understood what is at stake: it is not only that parts of mathematics are at risk. All arts and sciences are are under heavy attack and people start not only to feel but to understand it. Look at the video of the Google CEO getting boohed (below) It is currently viral. Advertising AI is no more popular. Especially if the advertisement is done by folks who do not have to face the consequences. People start to hate it not because it is not useful, but because it has become too powerful. We can see right in front of our eyes, how the bots have become more powerful and arrogant and snug, even if they are wrong. The technology is in danger of killing education in real time and rendering intelligence cheap. That is why the students of the University of Arizona are boohing. They know of the danger that their future is taken away from them by a few billionaires, who themselves do not have to worry about their own future. How to solve this? The Google CEO recommends: “Say yes”. That is the obvious Nash equilibrium of course. It is where everybody who does not want to be on the loser side, gravitates to. The video makes me a bit optimistic. Maybe there is hope for humanity after all. The chances are grim, but there is still hope.
It is amazing how fast things flip. It was only a few years ago that AI was fringe, then it became hip in 2022, and now it is being hated. When we had experimented with chatbots during two semesters in 2003/2004, the topic had been considered “nerdy” or “fringe” and was even laughed at. But AI was already trendy among ‘nerds” in 2000, especially after the AI Spielberg movie “AI”. This was maybe the end of the AI winter. Then, “Attention is all that matters” hit in 2022. And the entire world knew instantly how to use it. For a months it was fun to use it for teaching, for comparing bots with each other, to laugh about failures. (Here are examples and an other example from summer 2023). Some students could still be impressed even in the fall of 2023, especially when illustrating slides using AI generated pictures. In 2024, students started to know more about AI than computer scientists 3 years before. The explosion in the fall of 2022 was significant: a good fraction of the world population used it. No skill was ever needed to use AI. There is reading literacy, yes, but hardly AI literacy because the later does not even require the ability to read or process. AI bypasses the brain totally. Already in 2023, university AI policies seem have been written by chat-bots! Completely out of touch. Now there is a big U-Turn (at least in public opinion among creative folks). It is still the case that AI generated slop is liked on youtube or even can become viral. The reason is that in many cases, we can no more detect whether is real or not. Mathematicians who have hyped AI math writing even papers using AI must have finally seen the problem with that. The value of their own work gets decimated. What if a smart bot can write 100 times more papers? What if we can no more detect that? What if some have access to high value models costing thousands of dollars per month while the “plebs” is fed the stupid, advertisement and propaganda infested AI for the masses? We are still fed the free stuff. Drug dealers know how to make folks dependent. GIve it away for free at first, then enshittify it (first give away the good stuff, then stretch it slowly, just keeping above the threshold where folkds would abandon it, if they still can). In education we already see less motivation even to learn to to do basic things. More and more students can no more read. The poem der Zauberlehrling from 1797 is more relevant than ever.
„In die Ecke,Besen, Besen! Seid’s gewesen! Denn als Geister Ruft euch nur zu seinem Zwecke. Erst hervor der alte Meister.“
