The Day AI Broke Math

This October, Terence Tao, arguably the best mathematician in the world, was booked to give a public lecture at Caltech called "Machine Assisted Proof". He threw the whole talk out. The new title was Math 2.0. On Tuesday 6 October 2026, OpenAI put more than 700 math papers on the internet in one drop: claimed solutions to about 370 open problems, written by an AI model nobody outside OpenAI can use, with no human name on them as the author. Mathematicians call that day the mathocalypse. I prefer the mathacre. A Fields Medalist cried that night. A PhD student found his thesis problem on the list. A professor says OpenAI beat him to the problem of his career; OpenAI disputes his account. Then came the question of whether the proofs are even right, and one might be the biggest result in years. So did AI destroy math careers? I went through the evidence as honestly as I could, and asked what's left for a human who loves this stuff. I'm an engineer, and I've been asking the same question about my own job. If you do maths, or you're about to start, tell me in the comments what you're climbing right now. 0:00 The talk Tao didn't give 0:26 Math's living hero 0:49 Tuesday, 6 October 1:21 The mathacre 1:44 The Fields Medalist who cried 2:54 His thesis was on the list 3:26 He wasn't the only one 4:03 "Whole research programs wiped out" 4:37 A year ago it was a joke 5:24 Olympiad gold and Erdős #728 5:56 Dwarkesh asks Tao 7:41 Navier-Stokes 8:10 "Why would you ruin your career?" 8:49 25 Fields Medalists 9:11 Are the proofs even right? 9:35 Lean 10:14 The quasi Riemann hypothesis 10:56 Did AI destroy math careers? 11:53 No more heroes 13:07 Andrew Wiles in the attic 13:37 The rainforest resort 14:01 The new jobs 14:25 The climb 15:00 Your turn SOURCES (read 4 Nov 2026) The Mathocalypse (Scott Aaronson): https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=10169 OpenAI's release: https://github.com/openai/math Proofs and Prompts, 100+ reactions: https://proofsandprompts.com/2026/10/08/100-reactions-to-100-solutions/ Quanta on the quasi Riemann hypothesis: https://www.quantamagazine.org/ai-proved-the-quasi-riemann-hypothesis-what-happens-now-20261019/ Plus Fortune, Retraction Watch, the Boston Globe and more: every link is in the pinned comment. CLIPS Short excerpts, for commentary, from the official uploads: Numberphile (No More Heroes, with Terence Tao; The End of Mathematical Mountain Climbing, with Hugo Duminil-Copin), Dwarkesh Clips (Dwarkesh Patel and Terence Tao) and CNBC Television (Tristan Buckmaster). Links in the pinned comment. PHOTOS Andrew Wiles and Pierre Deligne: copyright C. J. Mozzochi, Princeton N.J. Andrew Wiles, 1995: Klaus Barner, CC BY-SA 3.0. Terence Tao: Institute for Pure & Applied Mathematics, CC BY 4.0. Tao with Paul Erdős, 1985: Billy or Grace Tao, CC BY-SA 2.0. Tao teaching: Natecation, CC BY-SA 4.0. Hugo Duminil-Copin: Tatjana Ruf, CC BY-SA 2.5. Tristan Buckmaster: Petra Lein, CC BY 4.0. Maryna Viazovska and James Maynard: Petra Lein (MFO), CC BY-SA 2.0 DE. Sébastien Bubeck: King of Hearts, CC BY-SA 4.0. Demis Hassabis: Duncan Hull, CC BY-SA 4.0. Melanie Wood, Maxim Kontsevich, Elon Lindenstrauss, Curtis McMullen and Peter Scholze: George Bergman, CC BY-SA 4.0. Pavel Etingof: Pavel Etingof, CC BY-SA 4.0. Andrei Okounkov: Andrei Okounkov, CC BY-SA 4.0. Artur Avila: Katrin Breithaupt, CC BY-SA 2.0 DE. Manjul Bhargava: IMU, Free Art License. Yu Deng: Simons Foundation, CC BY 4.0. Simon Donaldson and Efim Zelmanov: Gert-Martin Greuel, CC BY-SA 2.0 DE. Alessio Figalli: Jérémy Barande, CC BY-SA 2.0. Martin Hairer: The Royal Society, CC BY-SA 4.0. June Huh: MacArthur Foundation, CC BY 4.0. Pierre-Louis Lions: Philippe Binant, CC BY-SA 3.0. Shigefumi Mori: 大臣官房人事課, CC BY 4.0. Ngô Bảo Châu: Nguyentrongphu, CC BY-SA 4.0. Stanislav Smirnov: Renate Schmid, CC BY-SA 2.0 DE. Cédric Villani: Marie-Lan Nguyen, CC BY 3.0. Wendelin Werner: Antoine Taveneaux, CC BY-SA 4.0. Four colour map: Inductiveload, CC BY-SA 3.0. Caucher Birkar (ICM 2018), Peter Sarnak (VOA), Scott Aaronson (Easy n), the Fields Medal (Stefan Zachow for the IMU) and Fermat's 1670 Arithmetica: public domain. All via Wikimedia Commons. Alexander Dunn: Georgia Tech; Jared Duker Lichtman: Stanford Mathematics; Tao's Math 2.0 slides: Terence Tao. Used for commentary. MUSIC From Epidemic Sound (www.epidemicsound.com): "Lingering Dream" by Hanna Lindgren, "Shifting Ground" by Luba Hilman, "Cello Serenade No. 1" and "Tvivel" by Hanna Ekstrom and Anna Dager, "Climbing the Fence" by Arthur Benson, "Unfinished Stories" by Lennon Hutton, "All That We Have Been Through" by Ruiqi Zhao, "A Hidden Cabin" by Christian Andersen, "Life in Peace" by David Celeste. Sound effects from Epidemic Sound.