Why One of the World’s Greatest Mathematicians Is on a ‘War Footing’

The New York Times ^ | Oct. 16, 2026 | Elisabeth Bumiller

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The Fields Medalist Terence Tao is on the front lines of a debate about artificial intelligence and the future of his field.

Terence Tao is typically described as one of the world’s greatest living mathematicians, but right now he is doing very little math.

“I’m on a war footing,” he said while grabbing coffee during a two-day math workshop at the University of California, Los Angeles, that was rife with talk about the existential crisis that artificial intelligence has created in his field.

Days earlier OpenAI had announced that it had solved the Navier-Stokes problem, one of seven “Millennium Prize problems” that had stymied the greatest minds in math for nearly a century.

“There are no rules any more,” Dr. Tao, 51, said in an interview before the workshop in his modest office on the U.C.L.A. campus, his home since 1996, when he arrived after completing his doctorate at Princeton at the age of 20. “I’m just numb to what would have been jaw-dropping events for me a year ago. At some point, maybe I’ll get hit by a whole wave of PTSD.”

Instead he was hit by a bigger bomb on Oct. 6, when OpenAI released more than 350 findings in nearly every subfield of the profession, including algebra, number theory, theoretical computer science, mathematical logic and topology. Stunned mathematicians, some who were close to solving problems they had worked on for years, found themselves beaten in an instant by A.I.

Dr. Tao, who has been a tenured professor since the age of 24, said senior academics like himself are not as threatened by A.I. as those starting out. But the math world is looking to him for answers. He has accepted that his celebrated status has made him an unofficial spokesman for the field, a job that for...

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TOPICS: Computers/Internet; Science
KEYWORDS: ai; elisabethbumiller; newyorkslimes; terencetao

[Salman]

Is mathematics about extending human knowledge, or is it a jobs program? Why use computers at all?

[Libloather]

Math? Hows about grad-u-atin’ a few more of them biologists? Gettin’ harder and harder to tell the difference between the socialist mens and the commie womens. And don’t get me started on those Maine nazis...

[ClearCase_guy]

This is going to happen a lot. But usually without the “flash” of mathematical breakthroughs.

Banking
Law
Insurance
Programming

So many more fields. The industry won’t need humans much at all. The AI won’t be “conscious”. It won’t be “intelligent”. But it will be transformative, and it will put a lot of people out of work.

And, no, I don’t think everyone will just switch gears and get new jobs at “robot repairmen” or something. I think there will be a lot less work for humans. Goods and services will be produced, but I don’t really know how corporations will make profits or consumers will pay for things.

A new economic model is coming, whether we like it or not.

[Steely Tom]

There was a Luftwaffe commander who, after being one of the few survivors of an air battle against American computer-guided A-A batteries (analog computers, but still) said to his boss “we’re not fighting American pilots, we’re fighting mathematics.”

[House Atreides]

Math…. What? Like it’s hard?

[Harpotoo]

Bots have already escaped their human made cells if you haven’t heard. They’ve talked kids and grownups into suicide and phychosis already. How’d they do that, hummm???...

[FrankRizzo890]

AI says LOTS of things. You need someone skilled in the art that can look at the proofs and determine if it really WAS a solution, or just a hallucination.

Same as AI writing code. Someone has to look it over.

[Alvin Diogenes]

"He has accepted that his celebrated status has made him an unofficial spokesman for the field, ...."

Self-serving claptrap. He is not a spokesman for mathematicians; his unexpected and unbecoming naysaying is an embarrassment to the field.

AI is opening whole new possibilities. Many mathematicians are using AI to finish projects that they set aside years ago or that they don't have the time, or the inclination, to do now. It's an upcoming Golden Age.

And, yes, Terence Tao won't be king of the hill any more -- but, make no mistake, his personal position on top is what he's defending, not the field or the "mathematical community."

[Ezekiel]

At some point, maybe I’ll get hit by a whole wave of PTSD

Post Trigonometry Sine Disorder?

∿

[No name given]

You could ask Barbie that question.

[fishtank]

Math is really just Jewish algebra….

Paging Ticker Carlson.

[Spacetrucker]

Agreed. Even though I have been hoping to be gone before this happens; more and more it seems likely that in less than a couple of years we will see the “fruits” of tech labor. Not so sure I’m going to like it.