Date: October 17th, 2026 9:45 PM Author: bateful candlestick maker
Tao is like Magnus Carlsen discovering that he has no hope of beating the Stockfish on a random guy's phone. Except Carlsen accepted his inferiority with a lot more grace.
AI is going to break this stranglehold that our leadership has had on credit assignment, how fast we are allowed to go, and who lives and dies within this community. And you are absolutely free to take the other side of that. But you might stop trying to speak as the leader of mathematics and mathematicians who do not agree with many of your mysterious recent statements.
Date: October 26th, 2026 6:30 PM Author: Umber point ratface
He further has a point that probably a couple-hundred professional-mathematician manhours/year were being devoted to this problem, which, if you work out the salary value of those manhours, might actually be less than what OpenAI spent in compute to solve it.
Date: October 29th, 2026 6:00 PM Author: Swollen bearded electric furnace
cr
I get why he’s upset. I would be too if I got replaced by computer. But his view that AI companies should stop solving longstanding problems really is indefensible.