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

Mathematics in the age of AI

An essay, based on a public lecture delivered at the 2026 International Congress of Mathematicians, on how the mathematical community might respond to the arrival of artificial intelligence tools that are capable of performing research-level mathematical tasks. Rather than debating the capabilities of such tools, we condition on the hypothesis that these capabilities will arrive, and examine instead a question that is orthogonal to it: what the goals and values of mathematical research actually are. The problem-solving component of mathematics is used as a case study.

Artificial intelligence in mathematics education: The good, the bad, and the ugly

Integrating Artificial Intelligence [AI] into mathematics education offers promising advancements and potential pitfalls. Striking a balance between AI-driven developments and preserving core pedagogical principles is critical in the teaching and learning environment. AI has emerged as a transformative force in various fields, including education. In the realm of mathematics education, AI technologies offer a spectrum of potential benefits (including personalize instruction, adaptive assessment, interactive learning environments, and real-time feedback, among others) and challenges (such as lack of creativity and problem-solving skills, inability to explain reasoning, bias in data and algorithms, absence of emotional intelligence and data privacy and security concern etc). This conceptual study used autoethnography as the methodology and qualitative content approach to analyze data. The study discussed historical background of AI and considered ethical issues around AI. It was concluded that the journey to harness the full potential of AI in mathematics education requires careful navigation of the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects inherent in this technological evolution.

Is AI the End of Math As We Know It? | Quanta Magazine

Mathematicians are facing the sudden shift with grief, anger, and a desperate search for fresh ideas: “If we don’t adapt, there’s just no more math in 50 years.”

Mathematicians are grappling with the possibility that AI might eclipse them

I talked to 20 mathematicians about rapid AI progress in their field.

Terence Tao – Kepler, Newton, and the true nature of mathematical discovery

“And what those stories teach us about how AI will revolutionize math”

Mathematical Beauty, Truth and Proof in the Age of AI | Quanta Magazine

Mathematicians have started to prepare for a profound shift in what it means to do mathematics.

I’ll write romance novels if AI solves all maths, Chinese Fields winner jokes

As AI models prove they can push the boundaries, mathematicians are grappling with the threat that they could become obsolete.

The AI Revolution in Math Has Arrived | Quanta Magazine

AI is being used to prove new results at a rapid pace. Mathematicians think this is just the beginning.

Thomas Wolf on Twitter / X

Very thoughtful piece from Kevin Buzzard (perfect IMO score, number theorist, pioneer of formal maths in Lean)if math is not just about “human understanding,” then what is it about?and if ai capabilities keep growing exponentially what happens since “mathematics is infinite”? https://t.co/h7yYmZS01T pic.twitter.com/wFp2fec52Q— Thomas Wolf (@Thom_Wolf) October 2, 2026

The end of the age of heroes

AI will soon be better at math than any human. What does that mean?

AI co-mathematician: Accelerating mathematicians with agentic AI

We introduce the AI co-mathematician, a workbench for mathematicians to interactively leverage AI agents to pursue open-ended research. The AI co-mathematician is optimized to provide holistic support for the exploratory and iterative reality of mathematical workflows, including ideation, literature search, computational exploration, theorem proving and theory building. By providing an asynchronous, stateful workspace that manages uncertainty, refines user intent, tracks failed hypotheses, and outputs native mathematical artifacts, the system mirrors human collaborative workflows. In early tests, the AI co-mathematician helped researchers solve open problems, identify new research directions, and uncover overlooked literature references. Besides demonstrating a highly interactive paradigm for AI-assisted mathematical discovery, the AI co-mathematician also achieves state of the art results on hard problem-solving benchmarks, including scoring 48% on FrontierMath Tier 4, a new high score among all AI systems evaluated.

Study explores how AI use affects performance on math and reasoning tasks - Berkeley News

A UC Berkeley researcher co-authored a study that raises profound questions about how we interact with artificial intelligence in education — and daily life.

The Edge of Mathematics

Terence Tao, the legendary mathematician, explains the promise of generative AI.

Daron Acemoglu on Twitter / X

I recommend Columbia mathematician Michael Harris’s wide-ranging, informative and thought-provoking essay in Boston Review on AI and mathematics:https://t.co/txwAd8ri4xHarris rightly worries about the possible negative effects of AI-generated proofs and mathematics on…— Daron Acemoglu (@DAcemogluMIT) June 16, 2026

Can AI replace mathematicians? Vienna researchers weigh in

In September, OpenAI announced that some 10,000 AI agents partially 'solved' the Navier–Stokes problem, one of the most prestigious open challenges in mathematics. University of Vienna mathematicians Nathanaël Berestycki and Vera Fischer agree that the field will never be the same, but argue that maths is far more than producing proofs at speed.