Mathematics is hard for mathematicians to understand too Science

At a recent conference on mathematics in the age of automated proofs, mathematician and Fields Medalist Akshay Venkatesh presented “How do we talk to our students about AI?'' He quoted an email he'd received from a young student who asked, “Do you believe that mathematics is worth being studied in a world in which a machine can answer everything for you? What do you believe would be the 'job’ of a mathematician in this world?” Venkatesh framed AI as an opportunity to correct what he called an “essential gap that has opened between the practice of mathematics and our values.” Mathematician William Thurston has explained these values by writing, “mathematics is not about numbers, equations, computations, or algorithms: it is about understanding.” But Venkatesh argued that the record on this is terrible, lamenting that “for a typical paper or talk, very few of us understand it.” He is not alone in thinking that something is wrong with the current state of mathematics research.