Terence Tao recommends essay: why human mathematicians stay relevant in the AI proof era
littmath · x · 2026-09-29
Terence Tao recommends mathematician Dan Romik's essay "The feedback loop of mathematics research." Context: after OpenAI's announced solution to the Navier-Stokes problem and near-daily AI research breakthroughs, mathematicians are anxious — Scott Aaronson's reaction was a long string of "AAAA".
Core argument: theorems and proofs are only one output of mathematics' feedback loop, feeding back as inputs to be re-examined, digested and distilled into new knowledge. Even if AI models one day put the final QED on every theorem, humans remain needed to pick problems, digest and restructure knowledge, and give it meaning — and Romik argues we are not even living in that world yet.
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