Terence Tao: math has moved from proof scarcity to proof abundance
haider1 · x · 2026-11-14
In a conversation with Tyler Cowen, Terence Tao argues: 'We have moved from an era of proof scarcity to proof abundance. Machines can now brute-force the old landmark problems at scale, so solving individual problems has basically been hyperinflated as a currency.'
His conclusion: 'we are forced almost at gunpoint right now to switch to a post-industrial economy'—when AI devalues solving any single open problem, a mathematician's value shifts to posing new questions and frameworks.
The wide-ranging interview also covers what Euler's identity feels like, the Riemann hypothesis, whether Gödel's incompleteness theorem frustrates him, and whether the Collatz conjecture is actually true—asking Tao about what proofs feel like rather than what they say.
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