Yesterday a really good mathematician told me Anthropic is paying experts like him $250/hour to improve Fable by throwing hard math problems at it. They also get a separate account where they can use Fable for their own purposes. They can do this for 5 months maximum.
On Bluesky someone asked me if I'm interested in this sort of thing. An ambiguous question. I said I'm not interested in working for an AI company, but I'm *extremely* concerned about the battle for the soul of mathematics that is heating up.
For example, Kevin Buzzard, who is always pushing for the computer formalization of mathematics in Lean, says any PhD student who is not paying $200 per month for an AI subscription is "crazy". Does he really think they're all so rich? Is this what we want being a mathematician to become: paying a lot of money for an AI subscription to help you prove theorems and formalize them in Lean? So dull.
https://xenaproject.wordpress.com/2026/07/20/human-mathematicians-are-being-outcounterexampled/
John Carlos Baez
npub1nf…3nqe4
2026-07-24 09:32:43 UTC
Author Public Key
npub1nf4p4rh06z6n6lsvje4txk7eqs23y3hs8vd7nraq6tgwady5qvsqy3nqe4Seen on
wss://relay.momostr.pinkPublished at
2026-07-24 09:32:43 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "4882a6f58cf1e56fd0abaff0b4385771166d8f2f3b5cd7a542b11d639fc7bfb9",
"pubkey": "9a6a1a8eefd0b53d7e0c966ab35bd904151246f03b1be98fa0d2d0eeb4940320",
"created_at": 1784885563,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"proxy",
"https://mathstodon.xyz/@johncarlosbaez/116974260293157444",
"web"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://mathstodon.xyz/users/johncarlosbaez/statuses/116974260293157444",
"activitypub"
],
[
"L",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"l",
"pink.momostr.activitypub:https://mathstodon.xyz/users/johncarlosbaez/statuses/116974260293157444",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"-"
]
],
"content": "Yesterday a really good mathematician told me Anthropic is paying experts like him $250/hour to improve Fable by throwing hard math problems at it. They also get a separate account where they can use Fable for their own purposes. They can do this for 5 months maximum. \n\nOn Bluesky someone asked me if I'm interested in this sort of thing. An ambiguous question. I said I'm not interested in working for an AI company, but I'm *extremely* concerned about the battle for the soul of mathematics that is heating up. \n\nFor example, Kevin Buzzard, who is always pushing for the computer formalization of mathematics in Lean, says any PhD student who is not paying $200 per month for an AI subscription is \"crazy\". Does he really think they're all so rich? Is this what we want being a mathematician to become: paying a lot of money for an AI subscription to help you prove theorems and formalize them in Lean? So dull.\n\nhttps://xenaproject.wordpress.com/2026/07/20/human-mathematicians-are-being-outcounterexampled/",
"sig": "0f2484b4bfde027f3f23e4fe4a08b0ce5e484abeb6f346a164519714ccd6831a35b520a9a49519971c22bbc0f084845ec4254f9ec4a19748c4aae9895d0edf44"
}