Conference slide warns AI optimization could pull mathematics’ goals apart
AlexKontorovich · x · 2026-07-25
AI optimization may push mathematics’ goals apart
A conference slide argues that excessive AI optimization could make the many goals inside mathematics drift away from one another, rather than stay aligned around a single objective.
The slide maps out several distinct aims — building theory, applying knowledge, solving Olympiad problems, solving Erdős problems, tackling research problems, training the next generation, building community, and creating enduring aesthetic works — and warns that AI pressure may amplify the differences between these directions.
The note on the slide also says the diagram is “extremely oversimplified” and that the real structure should be much higher-dimensional.
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