AI eats science 1: the mathpocalypse

Mathematics has been turned on its head by artificial intelligence. On October 6th, OpenAI released a torrent of more than 700 papers claiming progress on 372 problems—pushing mathematicians into strange new territory. The “mathpocalypse” could be a warning shot for the rest of science, about how AI could upend their disciplines. Or is there, in fact, lots to be cheerful about? A new scientific revolution in the offing?

Over the next four episodes, we’ll bring you conversations with scientists who are deploying these intelligent new tools—people who are thinking about how it could reinvent the way they discover new things and understand the world. Next time: the biologists using foundation models to generate new life.

Guests and hosts:

• James Maynard of the University of Oxford
• Yang-Hui He of the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences
• Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor

Hear more about the new generation of mathematical machines in our May 2026 episode, “Maths enters its AI era”.

Topics covered:

• Mathematics
• Artificial intelligence
• Scientific discovery

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