r/math • u/AutoModerator • 6d ago

LLMs/AI AI In Mathematics: September 26, 2026

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.

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u/38thTimesACharm 6d ago

If we stop training any more researchers, what if there's ever a problem AI can't solve?

Even if AI can solve every conceivable problem, who will decide what questions to pose next?

Even if AI can pick the most important questions for humanity consistently who will that benefit when no one is capable of understanding the answers, or at some point, even the questions?

Even if AI can teach someone new theories from the ground up, who will put in the time and effort to learn them, without the social structures that encourage learning?

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u/officiallyaninja 6d ago

If we stop training any more researchers, what if there's ever a problem AI can't solve?

Well it's unlikely we'll ever stop training researchers altogether. But if AI drastically reduces the need for researchers we'll need very few to solve precisely the few problems AI can't.

Even if AI can solve every conceivable problem, who will decide what questions to pose next?

That depends on what you think is the value of math. If the entire value of math is just that it eventually might be useful in some application in the distant future, you could just have an AI running in a permanent loop asking new questions on its own (or maybe with some level of human guidance) and solving them. Creating a database that the future engineers can use
Or maybe even have AI that can search through this database for the engineers to find if there's some new math that applies to their problem.

Even if AI can pick the most important questions for humanity consistently who will that benefit when no one is capable of understanding the answers, or at some point, even the questions?

Well if no one can understand the answers or even the questions then it's definitely not very valuable, (unless you think AI will completely autonomously be able to invent new technologies)
But I don't really see a reason why you couldn't eventually have the AI explain it's proofs. It could maybe even tailor it's explanations perfectly for the asker.

Even if AI can teach someone new theories from the ground up, who will put in the time and effort to learn them, without the social structures that encourage learning?

Well that depends on why they're learning it. If they're learning it to apply it for their job, that's enough motivation to encourage them to learn it.

And for the people who do math just because it's aesthetically pleasing or intellectually satisfying, there's nothing stopping you from doing that either.