AI may not replace mathematicians. It may just make them much faster.
Terence Tao says the biggest value of AI in research is currently around the edges. The tedious work.
Reading papers. Checking calculations.
Writing code. Cleaning up documentation.
AI can take those jobs off a researcher's plate.
But there's still one thing that matters most:
Finding the idea nobody has found before. That's where Tao sees the human researcher still playing the central role.
So the real AI advantage in research may not be replacing the person doing the thinking. It's giving that person more time to think.