Terence Tao says math's 'romantic era' is over as AI enters industrial era
krishnan · x · 2026-10-21
UCLA professor Terence Tao said on the Numberphile podcast that math's "romantic era" is over: with AI tools solving hundreds of problems from simple prompts, even top scholars like him now sift through and verify AI-generated proofs instead of doing "heroic" solving themselves. Context: OpenAI claimed in early September to have cracked the Navier-Stokes millennium problem — frustrating mathematicians who had to verify work the model didn't show — and earlier this month said it solved 700 more open problems. "We are moving to an industrial era where math will become much more large-scale," Tao said, adding "some things are being lost."
Related event: Terence Tao: AI Ushers Math into an Era of Proof Surplus(3 posts)→
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