Mathematician David Bessis: AI is collapsing the 'theorem economy' and math isn't ready
stevenstrogatz · x · 2026-09-09
Mathematician David Bessis, reacting to the new claimed Navier–Stokes proof, says he cares little about the problem itself but argues: major solutions are always interesting; a confirmed proof would contain valuable insights; yet the community's incentives are ill-suited to peacefully absorb the discovery; and it's creative destruction that can't be stopped.
His underlying essay, 'The fall of the theorem economy,' builds on Thurston's view that mathematics produces clarity, not theorems, and draws on his own abandoned results to argue that AI-generated proofs break the credit-and-publication economy of math—claiming a result now kills others' incentive to formalize it. 'This is not a drill.'
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