AI Cracks Century-Old Math Problem: Jacobian Conjecture Disproved

An AI (Anthropic's Fable 5) disproved the 87-year-old Jacobian conjecture by finding a counterexample, announced during the World Cup final. OpenAI's Codex independently found the same counterexample. This landmark event signals AI's accelerating incursion into pure mathematics, though the model provided a counterexample without a proof, leaving mathematicians with 'how' but not 'why'. The real bottleneck is now proof generation, with deep implications for mathematical knowledge and the profession. Terence Tao, one of the world's top mathematicians, has given a talk on 'Mathematics in the Age of AI' that provides a vocabulary for discussing AI's role in math, directly following this breakthrough.