mathematics
Doing mathematics: proof, conjecture, and what mathematicians want that other fields do not.
FilterEveryone, all time95 from 35 people
- NS
Noah Smith quoted
Economics writer; author of the Noahpinion newsletter
Our readingWork for mathematicians will not run out.
Their wordsNo, we're not going to run out of work for mathematicians to do.
- 10 days earlier
- NS
Noah Smith quoted
Their wordsIn fact, they'll have much more work than ever, understanding the results produced by AI and figuring out what to ask AI to do.
- 2 weeks earlier
- TT
Terence Tao quoted
Their wordsMost of the value that flows into the world from mathematics and the work of mathematicians will not be replaced by AI, but could be magnified.
↗A value-based approach to mathematicsterrytao.wordpress.com 1st of 3 in this piece
- TT
Terence Tao quoted
Their wordsImproper usage of AI offloads thinking, understanding and learning, thus mortgaging future mathematical development.
↗A value-based approach to mathematicsterrytao.wordpress.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
- TT
Terence Tao quoted
Their wordsThe value of math, like so many other forms of knowledge, also comes from the process, not just the product.
↗A value-based approach to mathematicsterrytao.wordpress.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 2 days earlier
- TH
Tim Harford quoted
Economist and journalist
Our readingA tossed coin is more likely to land on the same face it started on than on the opposite face.
Their wordsPersi Diaconis, celebrated both as a mathematician and magician, has found that a coin toss is, in general, a 51/49 proposition in favour of finishing the same way up that it started.
↗Random is as random doestimharford.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 3 days earlier
- CD
Cory Doctorow quoted
Science fiction novelist, journalist and activist
Their wordsChatbots are marvels of mathematics, and that is enough. They don't need to be people.
↗Pluralistic: The Claude Delusion (21 Sep 2026)pluralistic.net 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 3 days earlier
- GS
Grant Sanderson quoted
Mathematics explainer, creator of the YouTube channel 3Blue1Brown
Their wordsand the reason is that this more closely gets at what deep understanding means to me than simply asking "what must be true?"
↗The last IMO problem AI could not solve3blue1brown.substack.com 1st of 2 in this piece
- GS
Grant Sanderson quoted
Their wordsSome proofs contain the seeds of their own discovery, but this problem was not like that.
↗The last IMO problem AI could not solve3blue1brown.substack.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 5 days earlier
- ZM
Zvi Mowshowitz quoted
Writes Don't Worry About the Vase
Their wordsNo matter who is and is not at fault, it is rather alarming that the labs cannot cooperate on something like assigning credit for a mathematical proof. This is a very bad sign and also a wake-up call.
- 1 day earlier
- TC
Tyler Cowen quoted
Economist at George Mason University
Their wordsI expect the funding for mathematics, and the interest in the topic, to rise considerably, at least in the medium term.
- 1 day earlier
- DL
Daniel Lemire quoted
Computer science professor who works on fast data processing
Our readingProfessionals across many fields will adapt to working with AI, and that shift cannot be reversed.
Their wordsMathematicians, software developers, engineers, lawyers, physicians will all learn to work with AI. You cannot put the genie back in the bottle.
↗The four-colour theorem was only the startlemire.me 1st of 3 in this piece
- BT
Ben Thompson quoted
Writes Stratechery, a subscription newsletter…
Their wordsOpenAI's tactics may in fact chill research in advanced mathematics
- DL
Daniel Lemire quoted
Their wordsDifficult proofs will now be built with AI, just as most code will be written with AI.
↗The four-colour theorem was only the startlemire.me 2nd of 3 in this piece
- DL
Daniel Lemire quoted
Their wordsPeople who insist on pen and paper should view themselves as artists.
↗The four-colour theorem was only the startlemire.me 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 2 days earlier
- PW
Peter Woit quoted
Mathematician and Senior Lecturer in the Mathematics…
Their wordsThe new AI agents have profound implications for mathematics research and I think the math community needs to start discussing specific ways to deal with these.
- PW
Peter Woit quoted
Their wordsthe math community needs to adopt a version of the ethical standards of experimental science. If you are using AI agents, you can't just give a proof (formalized or not), but need to also provide a detailed explanation of how these agents were used to get the result.
- 4 days earlier
- VR
Venkatesh Rao quoted
Writer and consultant on technology
Their wordsA productive mathematical ecology wants porous epistemic boundaries and impermeable verification boundaries. On the way in, metaphor, hallucination and category mistakes can be useful. On the way out, they are forbidden.
↗The Curiously Playable Universecontraptions.venkateshrao.com 1st of 3 in this piece
- 3 weeks earlier
- TT
Terence Tao quoted
Their wordsI believe that we are now entering a era of comparable turbulence in mathematics. This time, though, what is being stress-tested is not our foundational framework for mathematical truth, but rather the largely implicit framework of mathematical values and practices: what we consider a contribution to be, what we reward, what we regard as understood, and who - or what - we regard as having done the work.
↗Mathematics in the age of AIarxiv.org All 5 from this paper
- TT
Terence Tao quoted
Their wordsI argue that it will become necessary to make these unwritten goals of mathematics much more explicit; but once we have thoroughly examined and codified them, our community will emerge stronger and more resilient than before.
↗Mathematics in the age of AIarxiv.org All 5 from this paper
- TT
Terence Tao quoted
Their wordsConsequently, excessive optimization for one or two goals may cause the many previously aligned goals of mathematics to diverge from one another;
↗Mathematics in the age of AIarxiv.org All 5 from this paper
- TT
Terence Tao quoted
Their wordsAn excessively AI-polished proof may sand away both the "artificial" friction (typos, awkward phrasing, disorganization) and the "natural" friction, leaving a text that is easy to read and hard to learn from.
↗Mathematics in the age of AIarxiv.org All 5 from this paper
- TT
Terence Tao quoted
Their wordsBut passing an automatic filter is not a substitute for community acceptance; I do not believe that human referees can be removed from the publication process.
↗Mathematics in the age of AIarxiv.org All 5 from this paper
- 6 days earlier
- RG
Ryan Greenblatt quoted
Chief scientist at Redwood Research
Their wordsSecond, I think ML is a very shallow domain relative to math. So I think in math there's much more of a you find some true deep abstraction um and then like that like if you really understand that thing which is hard to understand then you get somewhere
↗Ryan Greenblatt – What happens once AI can automate AI research?youtube.com 3rd of 26 in this recording
- 1 day earlier
- CN
Cal Newport quoted
Computer science professor at Georgetown and author of Deep Work
Their wordsBut if you zoom out, it becomes clear that almost every “breakthrough” since last summer has concerned the narrow domains of computer code and math, which are defined by highly structured languages and come accompanied by massive amounts of specialized training data.
↗On AI Coding and Its Discontentscalnewport.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
- FL
Fei-Fei Li quoted
Sequoia Professor of Computer Science at Stanford
Their wordsMy current conjecture is hybrid is that humans working alongside AI would help us to solve these problems whose solutions have yet to be invented.
↗Using AI to Increase Your Intelligence & Enrich Humanity | Dr. Fei-Fei Liyoutube.com 7th of 21 in this recording
- 12 days earlier
- HW
Hillel Wayne quoted
Writer and consultant on formal methods
Their wordsBut I think it is more useful for most developers to have an exposure to like what math has in the various fields versus just going all in every single field when they see them, right? You've got to know what's available to know what's most useful for you. And most math will not be useful for you.
↗Formal methods with Hillel Wayneyoutube.com 13th of 24 in this recording
- HW
Hillel Wayne quoted
Their wordsAnd I wonder sometimes if that is the reason people don't recognize the use of math in software engineering is because the math they do need is not the math they've been exposed to.
↗Formal methods with Hillel Wayneyoutube.com 14th of 24 in this recording
- 3 days earlier
- PW
Peter Woit quoted
Their wordsSo far I haven't seen AI agents doing anything new and important that I would care about, but maybe that's just a matter of time...
↗Requiem for a Field?math.columbia.edu 1st of 3 in this piece
- 11 days earlier
- PW
Peter Woit quoted
Their wordsWhile in mathematics AI agents are starting to have a major positive impact on research (e.g. by resolving the Jacobian conjecture), the situation is very different in hep-th.