Terence Tao's 'Math 2.0' Talk Ignites Debate: Do AI-Discovered Drugs Need Mechanisms?
soumitrashukla9 · x · 2026-10-11
- A slide from Terence Tao's 'Math 2.0' public lecture at Caltech sparked pushback: biologist Cremieux argued Tao didn't consult any biologists before presenting.
- Core of the dispute: mechanism comprehension — most existing drugs' mechanisms are unknown; we just know they work and monitor for harms.
- Andrew Curran countered that almost any Stage 4 cancer patient would consider human comprehension of a working cure irrelevant — highlighting the 'effective but not understood' tension in AI-driven science.
Related event: Terence Tao's Math 2.0 Talk Sparks Debate Among Mathematicians(23 posts)→
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