Mathematicians go through the five stages of grief facing AI breakthroughs
Jsevillamol · x · 2026-08-02
As AI models from OpenAI and others achieve astonishing mathematical breakthroughs, the mathematics community is experiencing a psychological shock. A mathematician posted that peers are going through the famous five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and eventually acceptance.
The author urges colleagues to move through the first four stages quickly, embrace LLM tools, learn new skills for the AI era, and discover new ways to conduct mathematical research. Emphasizing that the global community of mathematicians is very small (likely under 300,000), he calls for the preservation of human resources and rapid adaptation to the new AI-reshaped academic ecosystem.
Related event: OpenAI’s Reported Math Breakthrough Jolts the Research Community(19 posts)→
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