Waiting for AI's phase change in mathematics - Ravi Vakil

Ravi Vakil is an algebraic geometer at Stanford and the president of the American Mathematical Society. He's seen technological shifts transform mathematics before, and he thinks AI's impact won’t come as a gradual climb, but as a sudden phase change. For now, he says, AI is like a bright but confused undergraduate: capable, eager, and on the verge of its first real insight. He's waiting for his "wow" moment: when AI tells him something mathematically surprising that he didn't expect it could figure out. His safest prediction about AI’s impact is that all our predictions, including his, will be spectacularly wrong. -- Episode links -- Transcript: https://epochai.substack.com/p/waiting-for-ais-phase-change-in-mathematics-ebc -- Timestamps -- 00:00:00 – Playing games with imperfect information against AI 00:02:35 – When AI will learn to be truly creative 00:03:48 – AI’s impact will be even more unpredictable than the internet 00:08:02 – What an “AlphaGo moment” would look like for math 00:10:35 – How AI will actually be useful in mathematical research 00:12:20 – Writing “wow”-level math problems for AI 00:15:06 – On a 0-10 scale, AI will change math 8 + 3i 00:16:17 – Is math the next chess? Special thanks to interviewer Daria Ivanova: https://youtube.com/@inQEDible Recorded in May, 2025.