Will AI kill us all---or just make mathematicians obsolete?

Abstract

AI's recent advances have fueled predictions of human intellectual obsolescence and fears for the future of mathematics. I argue that, impressive as these achievements are, they do not establish AI's capacity to invent new concepts and theories or sustain autonomous recursive self-improvement. Human intelligence also involves judgment, imagination, and embodied experience that standard measures fail to capture. Mathematics extends beyond proving theorems: its creative core lies in conceptual discovery and understanding. AI can strengthen this enterprise, but realizing its promise requires protecting attribution, open exchange, confidentiality, and mathematical training. I propose an academic AI consortium to provide powerful research tools with enforceable guarantees safeguarding unpublished ideas.