As AI Mows Down Math Conjectures, What's the Next Abstraction Layer?
AlexKontorovich · x · 2026-08-02
a16z partner Martin Casado recently asked how the math community reacted when early computers first solved integrals, seeing it as a parallel to today's AI wave.
Responding to the thread, mathematician KSHartnett pointed out a historical precedent: mathematicians had actually lost interest in explicit computation decades before computers could solve integrals. The shift toward algebraic abstraction had already happened in the late 19th century with figures like Riemann, Dedekind, and Hilbert.
As AI rapidly mows down mathematical conjectures today, KSHartnett argues that the real question is figuring out what new abstraction layer will sit above the coming avalanche of individual results.
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