Terence Tao, one of the world's greatest living mathematicians, says he's 'on a war footing' amid an existential crisis created by artificial intelligence in his field. While Tao uses AI as an assistant for calculations, code writing, and literature searches, Open AI's October 6 release of over 350 findings across every subfield of mathematics has left him feeling used and angry. He fears young mathematicians' years of research are being 'casually disrupted or destroyed' by AI systems that solve problems instantly.
Tao, a Princeton-trained prodigy who became a tenured professor at 24, notes that senior academics are less threatened than newcomers, but the math world looks to him for answers. The core crisis asks: if machines can solve hard problems faster, what becomes of mathematics as a human intellectual adventure? Tao mourns 'the path not taken' in the frantic race to develop AI technology.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing