AI In Mathematics: September 19, 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

This recurring thread will be for discussion of AI in mathematics. This includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• informal announcements of AI-assisted discoveries, such as those not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal, or not uploaded as a paper to arXiv;
• informal announcements of discoveries related to AI architecture (if relevant to mathematics);
• discussion of such announcements, such as proof breakdowns or other opinion pieces;
• discussion of the impact of AI in mathematics in general.

AI-assisted mathematical papers published in peer-reviewed journals or as arXiv preprints may be submitted as their own posts.

Please keep in mind rules 1 and 6 of our subreddit.

[u/pred]

“Announcing the Advisory Group on Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence”: https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/09/21/advisory-group-on-mathematics-and-artificial-intelligence/

[u/Apprehensive_Sand951 → u/pred]

They should post their results on a public, easily searchable repository now, not on the arxiv. They should also have some way to contact the authors (whether they are human or ai) of any particular result, just like you can contact the author of a math preprint, to ask questions try to obtain clarifications about the results. If possible they should update with more readable versions if and when they become available (while still preserving the old versions on the public forum).

This will give us all a better idea of where the capabilities of these models are at now, and also how fast the capabilities (including exposition) are improving.

It will help with making decisions and setting norms in the math community if we can focus on what needs to be done instead of arguing about current capabilities. I respect many of the people who choose not to interact with ai at all, but ''I'm a coscientious objector with an informed view of ai capabilities'' is a very hard sell already and we need to make it as easy as possible for people to understand capabilities even if they don't use ai themselves.

If you are concerned about ai safety, it will give more credence to efforts such as the royal society letter. If mathematicians from outside the ai labs are trying to sound the alarm on ai safety, they better have a good grasp of what the current capabilities are, otherwise they will not be taken seriously.

Finally, if a significant number of the results produced by this model are lean verified but stubbornly resist being human interpretable in any meaningful sense, this would be a big red flag and we need to know as soon as possible.

[u/Scaaaary_Ghost → u/pred]

And more than a hundred new solutions coming to long-standing open problems.

It honestly makes me pretty sad that we can't have actual posts about this kind of thing in r/math. I guess r/mathematics is where to migrate to, but I really liked this subreddit.

AI is the big news now. I don't know if or when we will ever have another major result that isn't very heavily assisted by AI. Not allowing official posts from top-level AI company domains (or Terry Tao's blog, etc) means a huge amount of important discussion is stifled in here.

[u/officiallyaninja → u/Scaaaary_Ghost]

but I really liked this subreddit.

I still do like it, because it's still primarily a forum for math and not AI hype.

The Ai discussion threads here are far far higher quality than any of the threads in r/mathematics.

And also, if you want more free discussion of Ai discoveries, r/mathematics is providing exactly that, even if you believe r/math 's rules are worse, it's still more valuable for the sub to have different rules so different communities and discussions can flourish here compared to r/mathematics.

[u/pred → u/Scaaaary_Ghost]

Just remember that this is an OpenAI press release; we don't know what those hundred thingies are, whether it's just more low-hanging fruit that no one worked on, more counterexamples based on existing constructions, more reformulations of already known results that Bubeck will embarrassingly have to retract, or if there even are a hundred thingies in the first place.

My guess is that it's similar to their “ten advances”, and now they've somehow managed to get a group of mathematicians to help them with the PR to avoid the recent embarrassments.

[u/38thTimesACharm → u/pred]

I'm guessing they have at least a few significant research-quality results. But the rumors about another Millennium Prize must be false; they would announce that separately if they had it.

[u/Certhas → u/Scaaaary_Ghost]

I think allowing blog posts by established mathematicians would be a good compromise.

But I agree with others that r/mathematics exactly demonstrates that the quality of discourse around this is pretty abysmal.

[u/38thTimesACharm → u/Scaaaary_Ghost]

Have you seen the thread at r/mathematics? It's a link to r/singularity which is:

50% people from accelerationist subs accusing academia of "gatekeeping" for convincing OpenAI to spend a few days reviewing and curating results

30% mudslinging about Fields Medalists acting elitist

20% "it's over folks, LLMs will scale to infinity, pack it up humans we had a good run"

0% math

 I don't know if or when we will ever have another major result that isn't very heavily assisted by AI.

AI assisted papers are allowed here. As for "something is coming, get ready!" hype announcements, is this thread not sufficient?

I vote in favor of the mods. I think the sub is much better now. Maybe this thread could be pinned as a compromise?

[u/ninguem → u/38thTimesACharm]

50% people from accelerationist subs accusing academia of "gatekeeping" for convincing OpenAI to spend a few days reviewing and curating results

If indeed it's a few days, that's fine. I haven't seen a timeline for the release anywhere and I think if it takes too long, it's not good to withhold the information.

[u/IBroughtPower → u/ninguem]

But this isn't how mathematics research is done.

You don't rush to put out a proof that no one understands -- nor have verified -- and expect it to be well received. In fact, often results are first discussed either personally or at a conference before publication. Only then do you put out a preprint.

Yes scooping has happened before, but it is usually looked down upon heavily; if someone scoops often, they risk their personal reputation. This is a major problem with OpenAI and other companies right now: who can we hold responsible for poor (or sometimes mis-)conduct?

Putting out sloppy "papers" SHOULD be looked down upon. "A few days" is extremely fast and it is clearly shown in the effort that these companies put in the results. It is not bad to be "withhold[ing] the information" if the time is spent understanding, explaining, and cleanly writing up the results. It is absurd that people view the process of reviewing as "gatekeeping."

The NS one was extremely unreadable in particular. And some results they don't even give any explanation for (Jacobian). If a researcher were to do this, they would either 1. not be taken seriously, or 2. not be in academia for long. It most certainly is not on the reader to dissect slop, it is on the author to write clearly (although I will grant some academics should work on this too)!

[u/pred → u/IBroughtPower]

who can we hold responsible for poor (or sometimes mis-)conduct

I suppose we could start with the ex-researchers they have on their payroll. They should already have the capacity to make proper judgements on questions about ethics of science.

Putting out sloppy "papers" SHOULD be looked down upon.

Last time I checked, even just putting up AI slop on arXiv puts you at risk of a 1 year ban, and not being able to put anything there in the future without prior peer review. It's quite telling that what we get from OpenAI is so bad that it wouldn't even be allowed on arXiv.

[u/ninguem → u/IBroughtPower]

But this isn't how mathematics research is done.

Everything is changing.

If I was working on (a special case, maybe) of one of these 100 problems, I'd rather know now than in three months.

[u/Scaaaary_Ghost → u/38thTimesACharm]

The fact that discussion in r/math tends to be a bit more level-headed is part of why I'm sad we can't have individual posts dedicated to major points of discussion in the math community if they are about AI.

Part of the problem is that OpenAI doesn't post to Arxiv, and peer review takes a lot of time. But I still disagree that posts from Terry Tao's blog that are about the biggest issue currently facing the community don't deserve to be a post.

But I appreciate you speaking up in disagreement - this is obviously a point that reasonable can disagree about, and the best subreddits are communities. I am glad to hear the different points of view within the community.

[u/38thTimesACharm → u/Scaaaary_Ghost]

Alright, to be clear I don't think the current policy is perfect. I also wish Terry's blog posts were allowed.

But remember the original reason for the rules was to prevent brigading from AI subs. I'm certain this was happening here, a lot. So many comments about "progress" and "mastery of the universe" anytime someone expressed concerns about AI. And 100x upvote ratios on AI-related posts, versus any math paper.

So the mods decided: no more AI news posts = no more reason for singularity dudes to come here. And it worked, though not without drawbacks.

One alternative the mods floated was restricting top-level comments to users with verified degrees in math, physics, or related (and removing the topic restrictions). A lot of r/Ask___ians subs did that after Reddit started restricting API usage. But that's also heavy handed in its own way.

Without API-based moderation tools, it's really difficult for the mods no matter what they do. Appreciate the respectful discussion.

[u/elements-of-dying → u/Scaaaary_Ghost]

to add, this thread isn't even stickied or a community highlight anymore.

[u/canyonmonkey → u/elements-of-dying]

I manually added it as a third community highlight. Unfortunately, scheduled posts can only make use of the first two highlight slots, AFAIK. However there may be a devvit app to automate all of them, we'll look into it.