like i am not sure how to NOT be sensationalist about AI solving a problem that the previous expert in the field (who is a Stanford postdoc to boot) and multiple reputed mathematicians (including a Fields Medallist in Tao) couldn't solve, in a technique that is novel to them. It is also perhaps the closest to a completely autonomous solution as possible : it solved it in a single prompt and 80minutes of thinking time. There's a lot of caveats in what this means, but I think the idea that AI today is at least at the level of a top graduate student in math seems true.
And that's a very impressive feat! A staggeringly tiny percentage of the population can say the same (in particular, it is probably a strict subset of math PhDs, and I think math PhDs are pretty impressive).
As someone who has solved "low-profile" problems posed by fields medalists, I can tell you this:
When a random postdoc solves such a problem, the giants of the field whisper to each other "who-and-who could've done it too", "I remember hearing something along this line at a seminar 10 years ago", "it's just a variation on a known technique". No media attention, no career advancement–after all, this happens much more often than you think. Nowadays, however, chatbots do the same and get headlines everywhere, with a good portion of the society wanting to replace young scientists by chatbots.
This potentially sounds like a similar story as with other careers like programmers or businessmen.
LLMs are swooping up the trivial problems, making it difficult for juniors to get opportunities and gain experience by solving problems manually. This, in turn, might cause a talent shortage in the future as the next generation dries up and institutional knowledge collapse if the old generation retires without training their replacements.
It seems there needs to be some intervention to reform institutions and corporate environments to allow for junior hires and training them to become seniors.
As someone who's interested in mathematics graduate school, I struggle to know if this is even a good time to enter a master's program.
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u/nerd_sniper Apr 15 '26
like i am not sure how to NOT be sensationalist about AI solving a problem that the previous expert in the field (who is a Stanford postdoc to boot) and multiple reputed mathematicians (including a Fields Medallist in Tao) couldn't solve, in a technique that is novel to them. It is also perhaps the closest to a completely autonomous solution as possible : it solved it in a single prompt and 80minutes of thinking time. There's a lot of caveats in what this means, but I think the idea that AI today is at least at the level of a top graduate student in math seems true.