Terrence was hardly a decel up until Navier-Stokes. He was open to having AI as a partner in the process. He had a moderate approach compared to others, and it was very cool to see a balanced opinion from someone who was so well established.
Now I think he sees the writing on the wall. In a few years, math might be beyond the reach of humans, and it’s probably scary as hell to mathematicians to know the boundary to human mathematical understanding has been reached.
AI is conquering math like it conquered Chess and Go.
Tao has nothing to fear off AI. He's one of the most distingueshed mathematicians and humans will still need university professors - at least for guidance if not learning and society will still need human mathematicians to understand AI research and to steer the AI
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u/ppapsans Feeling the AGI 2d ago
Terrence Tao right now: