You report in your leader that some mathematicians feel discomfiture at the AI solution to a Navier-Stokes problem (The Guardian view on AI v mathematicians: humans are still vital to the field, but tech firms refuse to see that, 20 September). I fear that they have been hoist by their own petard: mathematics, after all, has been the prime mover of the AI revolution.
As a somewhat lowly mathematician, let me remind others of the famous quote of Augustine: “The good Christian should beware the mathematician and all those who make empty promises. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of hell.”
While the accuracy of the quote, and Augustine’s meaning, are in some dispute, its appropriateness here is too good to waste.
Bev Littlewood
Emeritus professor of software engineering, City St George’s, University of London
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