Terence Tao's blog hosts guest post urging mathematicians to drop ego in AI era
Hesamation · x · 2026-11-03
Terence Tao's blog published a guest post, 'Egoleless Mathematics in the AI Era,' by Karthik C. S., Amit Sahai, and Jie Xue, urging mathematicians to drop the ego in the face of AI.
Key points:
- Mathematics' worth never depended on individual accomplishment or authorship; AI discoveries need not be a source of sadness — 'a truth has become accessible; its worth is not diminished by the absence of our authorship.'
- The post reframes the debate: before asking which tasks machines will take, examine whether we've tied mathematical work's meaning to producing results and demonstrating individual ability.
- Its sharpest line: 'We had already come to understand ourselves in terms suited to machines. AI merely exposes the consequences of this view.'
More from AGI Musings
- Alan's AGI Countdown Shows Just 1% Remaining, Sparking Reddit Debate — deles_dota · 2026-11-03
- HCI researcher warns AI use is addicting like TikTok, EMNLP shows coming deskilling — IanArawjo · 2026-11-03
- Claude Code team keeps a framed 'Bitter Lesson' on the wall: 'never bet against the model' — Hesamation · 2026-11-03
- Honnibal: LLM weight-editing paper abstract reads like stage magic — each result uses a different method — honnibal · 2026-11-03
- Ben: AI should make 99% of people economic actors, not just hedge funds — LinusEkenstam · 2026-11-03
- Anthropic roadmap: AI could fully automate top research teams by early 2027 — maksym_andr · 2026-11-03