Timothy Gowers

1 item

The Economist 2026-04-11-1

AI mathematicians: By devising and verifying proofs, AI is changing how maths is done

Four independent groups racing to formalize proofs in Lean, and Math Inc. translated Viazovska's sphere-packing work in weeks rather than the decade Hales needed for peer review, but DARPA's Shafto names the real bottleneck as trust, not computation. AI's primary value in mathematics is making claims auditable at scale. That separation between generation and formal verification is the architecture every enterprise AI system will eventually need.