Terence Tao's real point on AI math: the invented concepts along the way matter most
burny_tech · x · 2026-09-12
Responding to the framing that "mathematicians are upset AI is better than them," @markbao argues this misses Terence Tao's point — Tao is one of the most AI-friendly mathematicians.
Tao's actual argument: when humans work on discovering something, they invent new concepts along the way that become useful far beyond the original goal. Finding a solution matters, but the intermediate ideas are what enrich a field, since others can share and build on them.
He draws an analogy to collaborative software: algorithms for merging Word document changes evolved into concepts of versions, diffs, and merges, eventually enabling Git, Google Docs, and Figma — the intermediate concepts outlasted the original problems.
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