Can AI solve mathematics without understanding it? And if machines become better than humans at finding answers, who will come up with the questions?
I traveled to Cornell University to sit down with mathematician and bestselling author Steven Strogatz to explore what AI's remarkable advances mean for mathematics, human creativity, and our future. Our conversation comes ahead of the publication of his new book, Big Math, coauthored with Alex Townsend, which explores how mathematics underpins the technologies transforming our world and can be pre-ordered here: https://www.amazon.com/Big-Math-Hidde....
Steve explains why solving difficult mathematical problems is different from inventing new theories, and why AI has so far shown little ability to originate the questions that drive scientific discovery. Yet recent breakthroughs suggest machines may already be demonstrating forms of creativity that are difficult to distinguish from our own.
We also explore one of the most consequential developments in AI: machines that can produce valuable answers without being able to explain how they arrived at them. Steve shares the remarkable story of MIT scientist Regina Barzilay and an AI system that predicts breast cancer risk by detecting patterns human doctors cannot recognize.
Our conversation ranges from the mathematical foundations of human progress to AI safety, autonomous agents, consciousness, and whether curiosity might eventually emerge in machines.
Steve's new book, Big Math, coauthored with Alex Townsend, explains how mathematics became the foundation of technologies that are transforming our lives.
Chapters":
00:00 — Can AI ask good questions?
00:30 — Will AI solve mathematics?
03:55 — Solving problems vs. inventing new theories
06:05 — Sponsor: Foundation
07:30 — Is AI thinking or just computing?
09:10 — AI demonstrates mathematical creativity
11:20 — The mathematics behind AI
14:15 — Human judgment vs. machine computation
16:45 — Chess, Waymo, and machine intelligence
17:55 — What does it mean to solve math?
19:40 — Why AI struggles to ask good questions
21:10 — Curiosity and the human advantage
26:30 — How curiosity built the modern world
30:40 — AI's promise beyond mathematics
31:15 — Regina Barzilay's remarkable cancer research
34:40 — When AI sees what humans cannot
36:30 — Can we trust answers we don't understand?
39:35 — AlphaZero, AlphaFold, and machine learning
41:25 — The risks of black-box AI
44:20 — Can AI develop agency?
46:15 — AI optimists, doomers, and human responsibility
49:45 — Is AI comparable to nuclear technology?
53:25 — The possibility of an AI golden age
56:20 — Why Steve wrote Big Math
59:25 — From calculator to scout to oracle
1:00:40 — Could AI develop curiosity or consciousness?
1:04:40 — Why humans are still essential partners
