Shailendra Bade's Linkedin Analytics

The Cultural Divide between Mathematics and AI 🤖 At the 2025 Joint Mathematics Meeting, Ralph Furman observed a significant cultural divide between mathematicians and AI researchers. With 15% of presentations focusing on AI-related topics (up from 3%), the conference highlighted fundamental differences in how these communities approach knowledge and research. Mathematics is fundamentally about building deep understanding, not merely finding proofs. Richard Feynman captured this when noting how mathematicians declare complex proofs "trivial" after extensive explanation—reflecting the aspiration to understand concepts so deeply that complexity becomes obvious. 🧠 Mathematical culture values elegance and beauty, with G.H. Hardy arguing for mathematics as an aesthetic pursuit comparable to poetry. The field traditionally embraces openness, with results shared freely and methods discussed openly. Mathematics requires extreme patience. Many mathematicians report managing only about two hours of truly productive research daily due to the required concentration. Andrew Wiles, who spent seven years working on Fermat's Last Theorem, likened mathematical research to "a journey through a dark unexplored mansion." 🏛️ When AI systems reproduced known mathematical results, mathematicians were excited (seeing validation of system capabilities), while AI researchers were disappointed (having hoped for novel discoveries). This reflects different goals: mathematicians seek deeper understanding of established truths, while AI researchers often prioritize novel results. A key question emerged: what if an AI system produced a proof of a major conjecture like the Riemann Hypothesis, but the proof was too complex for humans to understand? The consensus was that while such a proof might technically resolve the conjecture, it would fail to deliver the deeper understanding that mathematicians truly seek. The cultural divide between mathematics and AI represents an opportunity for mutual learning. Both communities bring valuable perspectives: mathematics offers traditions of rigor, patience, and beauty, while AI research brings energy, resources, and new computational approaches. 🌟 Mathematics has evolved over thousands of years. It will continue to do so in the age of AI. The key will be using AI to enhance rather than replace the human understanding that lies at the heart of mathematical progress. As Einstein famously said, "The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.