Mathematician publicly rebuts Terence Tao's AI-and-math talk as 'embarrassing'

lpachter · x · 2026-10-11

Mathematical biologist Lior Pachter publicly disagreed with Terence Tao's view of mathematics articulated in a Caltech talk, arguing that applied and pure math problems are not disjoint. He called the claim that a model is a 'more accurate model' embarrassing, criticized another slide about cancer, and noted none of the many math-and-AI committees formed include a mathematical biologist. The slide deck is publicly linked.

Related event: Terence Tao's Math 2.0 Lecture Slide Sparks Debate on Effectiveness vs. Understanding(17 posts)→

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