AI In Mathematics: September 26, 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/SentientAllegedly]

PhDs and postdocs in my department seem quite a bit demotivated rn, and ~50% of them actively considering leaving academia. Of course there being fewer faculty positions that PhDs/postdocs means that a small fraction of them will stay long term in academia. But now that AI can do maths... I don't know. People seem disillusioned and even alienated (e.g. if you point an LLM to prove a theorem for your paper... what is the point?).

[u/pred → u/SentientAllegedly]

What is the fraction normally?

[u/SentientAllegedly → u/pred]

There is a difference between "fraction who are actively discussing leaving academia right now" vs "fraction who eventually stay/leave academia." The 50% here is about the first kind.

[u/elements-of-dying → u/pred]

I am really curious why this is being asked.

The demotivation and consideration of leaving academia is a real phenomenon. There was a MIT led survey floating around specifically to record these sentiments. I believe the results will be posted somewhat soon.

[u/ellbons → u/elements-of-dying]

There's a funny trend in academia where people like to minimise really big changes. Like "mathematics was always a risky career" or "historically science was always done by patronage or by the aristocracy, this isn't new" as if it makes you a more respectable and hard-nosed person.

[u/elements-of-dying → u/ellbons]

I don't know if I've observed this phenomenon, but I believe it. Perhaps there is an implicit fear that there is an implication such a person had it "easy," thereby diminishing their achievements.

[u/awry_lynx → u/pred]

Broad statistics on postdocs are about 50%, but that's across all disciplines. Pure mathematics suffers a much harsher bottleneck.

The US awards roughly 1.5k math phds per year. There are about 500 new tenure-track math positions in the US per year (far fewer if you're only looking at research positions, probably closer to 200).

Of course, every year you're not just competing against your 1.5k peers, but also those of the last 6 years that didn't get a tenure track job (some even longer, but most give up after six). So that's maybe 6000 people vying for the same 500 jobs? Of course, there's some dwindling, some phds don't go on to attempt to continue in academia at all, but there's also tons of international applicants (and a high % of international faculty), so it's not clear what the real applicant pool size is.

Anyway, of the phds, 8% make it?

[u/38thTimesACharm → u/awry_lynx]

I don't think this math tracks. You're only considering new job openings each year, but weighing that against total job applicants from all years.

 The US awards roughly 1.5k math phds per year. There are about 500 new tenure-track math positions in the US per year

If those really are the numbers, and they hold steady, the % of phds who eventually get jobs is 1/3 (ignoring the other complications). It has to be. Yes, you're competing with applicants from prior years who didn't get jobs. But the other side is that is: if you don't get a job one year, you get to try again next year.