Actually, as soon as I posted this I thought about how MIRI does exactly this! But this is just one group, and we would need more data.
There’s no problem with suggesting a hypothesis based on a limited data set, but that’s not how the post reads. It sounds like it is making a definitive claim, but does not present the evidence to back this up.
Note that I wrote “Mathematicians who are motivated to learn these skills are well positioned to do so,” which is a weaker claim than that mathematicians are known to have highly transferable skills. I’m fairly confident that what I said is true in most cases, but this is based on a lot of tacit knowledge, which is difficult to externalize.
Actually, as soon as I posted this I thought about how MIRI does exactly this! But this is just one group, and we would need more data.
There’s no problem with suggesting a hypothesis based on a limited data set, but that’s not how the post reads. It sounds like it is making a definitive claim, but does not present the evidence to back this up.
Of course, much of what MIRI hires mathematicians for is to do mathematics research.
There’s a disclaimer at the beginning :-).
Note that I wrote “Mathematicians who are motivated to learn these skills are well positioned to do so,” which is a weaker claim than that mathematicians are known to have highly transferable skills. I’m fairly confident that what I said is true in most cases, but this is based on a lot of tacit knowledge, which is difficult to externalize.