By KiddieDaily Editors · 2026-06-29 · 3 min read · 1 source

What it Means to Be a Mathematician When AI Does the Math

Bias ratings based on AllSides + Ad Fontes Media. Agreement % = sources covering this story. Always read multiple sources and think critically.

Terence Tao of the University of California, Los Angeles, believes AI could usher in an era of “Big Mathematics,” where humans and machines work together on complex problems.

In the mid-noughties, when music by the Killers and Franz Ferdinand blared out of every pub and nightclub I passed, I spent my days and nights struggling through a Ph.D. My research focused on simulating how special light waves interact in liquid crystals and using simple equations to approximate and understand those interactions. When I look back at my thesis now, liquid crystal technology is old hat, and I imagine my work could be completed with AI assistance in a matter of days—maybe hours.

But the same cannot be said for the work of the pure mathematics Ph.D. students with whom I shared a cramped office at the University of Edinburgh. At the time, I felt sorry for these colleagues, who day after day sat at their desks, seemingly tearing their hair out and making no progress.

(Though I was struggling too, I was at least always making some headway.) When we finished and went our separate ways, some hadn’t even published a paper. Now, in hindsight, I finally understand why they toiled for years on abstract mathematical problems that only a handful of people in the world care about. It wasn’t arrogance, as I thought at the time; they weren’t trying to prove their superior intelligence by being the first to solve a seemingly intractable mathematical problem.

It wasn’t even a form of masochism (which was my second guess)—penance for some imagined inadequacy. I realized they derived joy, satisfaction, and meaning from the long journey toward understanding. “Sometimes, understanding just strikes you as being very beautiful.” —Jeremy Avigad, Carnegie Mellon University “Sometimes, understanding just strikes you as being very beautiful.

Sometimes it’s a feeling of accomplishment, like completing a marathon,” muses Carnegie Mellon University mathematician Jeremy Avigad. “But it’s not quite either of those: It’s just a wonderful feeling when you’ve been thinking long and hard about something complex, difficult, and then—all of a sudden—it just comes together.” This feeling has driven mathematicians throughout history. Likewise, the way mathematicians pursue that feeling has changed little over the centuries.

They notice or imagine links, patterns, or properties in numbers, shapes, or logical structures. From this, they write conjectures—unproven statements of their speculation. They or other mathematicians then use logical reasoning and the tools of mathematics in often creative ways to prove or disprove those conjectures.

Finally, yet other mathematicians verify (or challenge) the proofs. Invariably, this process requires a whole heap of thinking time. “I went to a pure maths camp with classes where we would sit with hard maths problems for half an hour and no one would say anything—everyone was just thinking,” says Krystal Maughan, a mathematician and computer scientist about to get her Ph.D.

at the University of Vermont. “But then we would work together and kind of tease out the problem.” This is the age-old joy of math in action. But today’s AI systems are starting to make inroads into bypassing this slow, deliberative process.

Taking this trend to its logical conclusion, what happens if AI makes the mathematician’s struggle completely unnecessary? Might AI even sideline humanity completely?

Think About This

What questions does this story raise for you? Talk with your family: Why does this news matter? Who is affected? What might happen next? Is there anything you can do?

🔍 Want to verify this story? Check it on Google Fact Check Explorer →

More stories: Kid News · Archive · Fact Check