Twenty-seven Fields medallists say solving famous problems isn't the point of math. The town yells guild protection and wants the robots to solve it. Abe asks the mayor where radio came from: Faraday watched magnets, Maxwell made it math, the math predicted radio waves. Dougie understands no homework.
When 27 Fields medallists declared that solving famous problems is not in itself the point of mathematics, AI enthusiasts online rolled their eyes and called it guild protection; two applied mathematicians answer that the understanding behind a solution is what turns into technology, as Faraday's observations of magnets became Maxwell's equations, which predicted electromagnetic waves and led to radio, television and cellphones.
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Much Is Lost by Ceding Math's Hardest Problems to A.I.
The New York Times · Sep 29, 2026
