Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Will AI become a Fields medalist? The pace of AI development makes even 2-year predictions difficult. Society must decide how to integrate AI's immense mathematical power and restructure the field. #AIMath #FutureOfMath #ArtificialIntelligence #Mathematics Full Podcast with Prof. Jacob Tsimerman: youtu.be/6uIJdXmB4vE
Will AI become a Fields medalist? The pace of AI development makes even 2-year predictions difficult. Society must decide how to integrate AI's immense mathematical power and restructure the field. #AIMath #FutureOfMath #ArtificialIntelligence #Mathematics Full Podcast with Prof. Jacob Tsimerman: youtu.be/6uIJdXmB4vE

![The Last Generation of Mathematicians
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Ten days after winning the Fields Medal — maths highest honor — Jacob Tsimerman joins to explain why hes leaving academia temporarily for OpenAIs AI safety team, and why hes grieving even as he does it. The conversation covers why math is one of the first fields being radically reshaped by AI, whether a proof still counts if no one can understand it, what mathematical understanding really means, the ethics of elite access to frontier models, his disagreements with the Leiden Declaration, and his advice for young people weighing a career in pure math in an age of rapidly advancing AI. This is an exclusive first podcast with Jacob Tsimerman.
The painting in the background (which you can’t see … my fault!) was made by the talented artist Kris Davidson. Definitely check out her work here: https://www.instagram.com/hellokrisdavidson
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TIMESTAMPS:
- 00:00:00 - Fields Medal and Grieving
- 00:05:38 - Canonical Human Cognition Patterns
- 00:10:40 - Prompting the Mathematical Future
- 00:15:40 - Pure Math and Physics Loops
- 00:21:00 - Epistemic Black Boxes
- 00:26:00 - Rigor Outgrowing Intuition
- 00:31:20 - Cognitive Mechanics of Understanding
- 00:37:00 - Gödel and Working Memory
- 00:42:10 - Mathematics as Improvised Art
- 00:47:30 - AI Power and Meritocracy
- 00:52:50 - Math on the Chopping Block
- 00:58:20 - Unrestricted Optimization Risks
- 01:03:40 - AI Safety Manhattan Project
- 01:08:50 - Training for Post-AI Careers
- 01:14:10 - The Managerial Shift
- 01:19:40 - Cognitive Offloading and Adaptation
LINKS MENTIONED:
- Jacobs Website: https://www.math.utoronto.ca/~jacobt/
- Jacobs Publications: https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/Jacob-Tsimerman/3130599
- Quantas Story On Jacob [Article]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/jacob-tsimerman-wins-2026-fields-medal-for-andre-oort-conjecture-proof-20260723/
- André-Oort Conjecture: https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/202410/rnoti-p1307.pdf
- Canonical Heights On Shimura Varieties And The André-Oort Conjecture [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.08788
- O-Minimal GAGA And A Conjecture Of Griffiths [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1811.12230
- Ten Advances In Mathematics And Theoretical Computer Science: https://openai.com/index/ten-advances-in-mathematics/
- Thoughts About The Leiden Declaration: https://gowers.wordpress.com/2026/07/26/thoughts-about-the-leiden-declaration/
- Tobias Osborne LinkedIn Post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tobias-osborne-601830a5_farewell-to-the-conjecture-prover-several-share-7487777959299276800-mxsa/
- Math For AI Safety: https://mathforaisafety.org/
- Charles Fefferman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fefferman
- G-Functions, Motives, And Unlikely Intersections [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.09867
- Tobias Osbornes QFT Lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDfPUNusx1EpRs-wku83aqYSKfR5fFmfS
- AISI Website: https://www.aisi.gov.uk/
- Sebastian Jaimungal: https://sebastian.statistics.utoronto.ca/
- Edward Frenkel [TOE]: https://youtu.be/RX1tZv_Nv4Y
- Roger Penrose [TOE]: https://youtu.be/iO03t21xhdk
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