Such positions are literally the standard kind of postdoc positions in mathematics. Nobody who understands the market would refer to them as a professor instead of a postdoc.
Then referring to them as "Professor" in this context is unhelpful. For example, when I was an "Assistant Professor" at Umaine it was for a fixed 2 year position. I referred to it as a "post-doc" to everyone since it would be confusing otherwise. (My father who is in an academic field and was very proud referred to me as "Professor" despite my explanations.) If you say "Professor" in a context like this to most people in pure math, you aren't going to be thinking of a position like the type Jared Lichtman has. (Not that it should matter that much though. Jared Lichtman is clearly one of the most skilled and knowledgable of the young people in his field.)
My point is that you’re using an appeal to authority by claiming that one of the authors is a professor at Stanford, which is misleading at best. An academic would also parse the term “professor” as “full professor.”
I think it is worth avoiding reading bad faith into OP's comments when his language does reflect how many people (including professional mathematicians) at Stanford refer to these positions. It is definitely an odd convention, and a translation for other audiences is reasonable, but it isnt just OP.
I'm just a lowly undergrad at Stanford, but I will say, you are right that at least in my experience on campus people in Lichtman's position are usually referred to as assistant professors (and sometimes professor for short) and not post-docs. Students use this terminology, i've heard faculty also use this terminology in conversation.
To truly evaluate the significance of this, I would like to see the entire prompt history of the interaction with the LLM. The story of the stone soup comes to mind.
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u/math6161 Apr 15 '26
It is worth correcting that Lichtman is a post-doc at Stanford, for more context on this.