Post #2581818

2026-05-13 01:46 UTC

Throughout my career, I have often made particular efforts to go through and digest recent solutions (or partial progress) in notable developments in my fields of research, partly for my own edification, and also to post on my blog or other social media as a service to these communities (and, in some cases, to highlight the work of early career researchers). This was a rational thing to do in the era of proof scarcity, in which such proofs were rare and valuable, compared to the time available to voluntarily review and explain them. However, this is now changing, with a noticeable increase in the number of serious proof generation attempts to many problems in my field, to the point where this is no longer the bottleneck to mathematical progress. Because of this, as well as a significant reduction in the time I have available to devote to such tasks, I am now changing my personal policy on verifying or digesting any new proofs generated in these areas. (1/2)

Replies (2)

@tao@mathstodon.xyz 2026-05-13 01:46

I will prioritize such review for results that either (a) have been requested for me to referee by a journal, (b) are authored by an early career researcher, (c) relate extremely directly to my previous or current work, (d) have been carefully formalized in a proof assistant, or (e) exhibit exceptionally thorough efforts by the authors at digesting and presenting the proof. In all other cases, I will be no longer be likely to present any significant public comment on such papers in real time, even if they appear to solve a well-known problem. (In case (a), of course, my opinions would only be communicated to the editor, and thence to the authors.) Of course, I have no objection to anyone else weighing in on such results, and traditional mechanisms for proof digestion, such as research talks, conversations at conferences, and the peer-review system, are still available. I may also eventually comment on such developments at a similarly "old-school" pace. But I will no longer try to match these digestion efforts to the speed and volume of this modern era of proof abundance. (2/2)

Open ##2920369
@domotorp@mathstodon.xyz 2026-05-22 04:01

@tao@mathstodon.xyz In hindsight, the new OpenAI breakthrough coming out exactly one week after this post is probably not a coincidence.

Open ##2920379