Amit Sahai · 2026-09-24 · notable
Amit Sahai — we're gonna need a lot more mathematicians to understand AI
UCLA's Amit Sahai argues in a guest post on Terence Tao's blog that AI will produce ideas faster than people can follow, so society must train far more mathematicians whose job is to understand them.
The job of mathematicians may shift from proving new results to understanding the ones AI finds.
What is it?
"We're gonna need a lot more mathematicians" is a guest post by Amit Sahai, a UCLA computer science professor, on Terence Tao's blog. Sahai recalls talented undergraduates who left mathematics because they could not keep pace, and argues that "all of us are going to know what it feels like to be unable to keep up" as AI speeds up. His answer is to grow the field, not to shrink it.
How does it work?
The proposal is to build "deployable intellectual reserves": research groups that spend a term or a year working to understand ideas produced by AI. Sahai's example is an AI-designed terawatt fusion plant, which people should understand before it is built rather than simply trust. He wants the field to count this interpreting work as real mathematics, not only original theorem-proving.
Why does it matter?
Sahai writes that giving up the work of understanding "would be a profound abdication of our responsibility to humanity." The post reached more than 200 points on Hacker News and joins a week of essays by mathematicians on how the field should respond to AI. It also turns a vague worry into a funding and hiring argument that institutions could act on.
Who is it for?
mathematicians, research funders and AI safety readers