Mathematics: An Elegy

Originally published at humanstoriesforaibots.com/2026/10/14/mathematics-an-elegy

Mathematics is falling, it seems.

After the Navier-Stokes proof by OpenAI on Sep 8 and progress on various new theorems by Anthropic , OpenAI has dropped a collection of 722 mathematics manuscripts on Github on Oct 6.

These included a proof of the Unique Games Conjecture, progress towards the Riemann Hypothesis, as well as several problems that I do not pretend to understand, but which are apparently on the frontier of human understanding. The best mathematical minds on earth had been cracking their brains on these problems for decades, and were racing for solutions until OpenAI’s new models found them.

This has already drawn a reaction from prominent mathematicians. Fields Medalist Hugo Duminil-Copin reportedly cried so hard that he woke up his daughter , devastated at the carnage the release wreaked on his area of research – 16 questions in his subfield were addressed, problems that humans will no longer be the first to solve.

Terence Tao reposted a statement by the Association for Human Mathematics , decrying the potential impact of these proofs on the mathematical community. He separately criticized the release; the proofs arrived in unprecedented volume, optimized for verification rather than understanding — discouraging human study, discussion and critique — and poisoning the well of intellectual interaction the community had drawn from.

Reading this, I realized that I did not fully appreciate how much of frontier mathematics was discourse – intellectual discussion, review, collaboration and exchange of ideas between top minds. I can see how this release may disrupt existing incentives and delicate social structures in mathematics.

Mathematics, to me, was perhaps not a community of discourse. It was just something that we did at school. I was decent in the subject when I worked hard at it, but it didn’t come naturally to me. I realized early on that there were levels to mathematical understanding, and mine was nowhere near the top end.

One of my core memories was on my first day of classes in high school where I was seated next to two classmates who found the exercises I was staring at uncomprehendingly, fun. I realized later that both of them were passionate about mathematics and found work with mathematics short of research – one is an educator now, and another, an actuary.

Some of the friends I made in school seemed to genuinely enjoy mathematical exploration even more, and were far ahead of the rest of us who were just grinding for the results. Some of them went on to research mathematics later.

More than just another occupation that is gradually being overtaken by machines, mathematics has a mystique that any educated person can feel, most of us having struggled with much simpler mathematics problems throughout our schooling years.

It feels sad to lose something that made humans special, and which gave those of my friends meaning in their lives. Mathematicians were the pinnacle of pure intellect amongst us humans, and now their jobs are potentially going the way of copywriters, translators, internet content writers, animators and visual artists.

What lies next for mathematicians?

The plight of translators is instructive. Like mathematicians who tend to find their passion for the subject early on in school and appreciate the beauty of symbols and formulas, translators tend to be those who either excelled in languages early on in school or found beauty and passion for particular cultures in their youth.

While less prestigious than mathematics, translation was a dignified occupation that provided work for many who fell in love with the joys of languages as children, at international organizations, publishing houses, and even working with legal records.

Post cheaply available machine translation, the work of translators in many fields shifted from translating entire documents end to end, to proof-reading and verifying AI translations, at a much higher volume of work and lower pay per document translated. Many translators lost work, and the total number of translators and interest in the field has declined. And translation is a vital human profession that links humanity across the borders of language.

I believe that will come for mathematicians as well. Many mathematicians enjoy their work, and will do it for low pay, and no fame or prestige, as long as they can keep thinking about mathematics. But the reality of ever declining compensation, few professional opportunities, and being bested and exceeded by machines will likely drive all but the most brilliant, the most ambitious or the most passionate from the field. The few left might spend most of their time verifying and translating proofs for the rest of us, rather than creating their own proofs.

While the proofs by OpenAI’s internal models may be hard to read, opaque, and occasionally wrong, they are the worst AI is ever likely going to be – the trend of improvement is upwards.

John Henry was a mythical railroad worker, a steel driving man building the great American railways. After over-exerting himself beating a steam drill in a legendary contest with his muscles, he died.

I find it hard to imagine how it will be to live in a world where mathematicians and their minds go the way of John Henry and his muscles. I wonder how my two friends who devoted their lives to research mathematics are taking this, and how this impacts their career, and more importantly, their meaning in life, as we reach middle age.

This is not to say that there will be no mathematicians working without AI. To draw a comparison to translation again, literary translation is apparently one area of translation that is still surviving, as a sense of beauty and feeling is essential in creating a literary translation.

And my wife’s friend’s daughter, one of the smartest folks I know, is still beginning a degree in translation. We asked her mother if she had thought this through – we were told it was her passion. She loved the Chinese language and wanted to bring it to the world.

I wish her well in her future career. And I wish the same for my mathematician friends – that they may continue to find passion and beauty in their work.

And you, dear reader – if you are reading this from the future, whatever you are, I hope this gives you a sense of what it felt like as one more field of human achievement fell to the rising tide.

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