Terence Tao on 'War Footing' as OpenAI Claims Navier-Stokes Solve Shakes Mathematics
AlexTensor · x · 2026-10-18
A New York Times feature profiles Fields Medalist Terence Tao as he confronts AI's existential disruption of mathematics. OpenAI recently claimed to have solved Navier-Stokes—one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems open for nearly a century—and released over 350 mathematical findings. Tao says he's 'on a war footing,' doing little actual math while serving as math's unofficial spokesman: 'There are no rules any more... I'm just numb to what would have been jaw-dropping events a year ago.' At a UCLA workshop, AI's existential crisis for the field dominated discussion.
Related event: Terence Tao Declares "Wartime" as OpenAI Claims Navier-Stokes Breakthrough(2 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- Paras Chopra: Intelligence picks good options, power defines the option space — paraschopra · 2026-10-18
- Anthropic report: junior technical hires fell from 27% to 9% as agent hours hit 6x human hours — rohanpaul_ai · 2026-10-18
- Redditor proposes AI regulation framework: text detection, face verification, open algorithms — techtotechbytechy · 2026-10-18
- When AI can clone your product by sight, paid software's moat is service and trust — sujingshen · 2026-10-18
- Anthropic borrows lawyers' ethics for Claude agents that closed 186 deals with no human approval — rohanpaul_ai · 2026-10-18
- Tim Sweeney: AI will unlock a new golden age of games too costly to build before — TinfoilTricorn · 2026-10-18