Mathematician pushes back: AI can't pick your PhD problem—the search space is infinite
robleclerc · x · 2026-10-06
Responding to "what's left to earn a math PhD when AI one-shots everything," Rob Leeclerc argues that pure math research isn't usually incremental progress on a known problem—most PhDs must figure out the problem themselves.
The space of potential problems is infinite; what AI can one-shot are well-defined questions, and finding new ones to ask is exactly the part researchers still have to go look for themselves.
More from AGI Musings
- Researcher laments how slow humans look as algorithm design breakthroughs pile up — michaelchchoi · 2026-10-06
- South Korea bets $3.5B on a sovereign frontier model as every economy wants one — TansuYegen · 2026-10-06
- AI differs from past automation because it automates automation itself — burny_tech · 2026-10-06
- Veteran dev mourns dying coding craft: from hand-sliced Photoshop corners to AI — CtrlAltDwayne · 2026-10-06
- Study of 227K STEM PhD abstracts links AI use to leaving academia for industry — ValerioCapraro · 2026-10-06
- AI Race Is Now a Five-Layer Contest: Intelligence, Compute, Energy, Manufacturing, Speed — ingliguori · 2026-10-06