{"article":{"slug":"why-are-we-even-doing-all-this","title":"Why are we even doing all this?","subtitle":"A guest post on What’s new about the value of curiosity-driven work in an age of AI","summary":"Rikab Gambhir’s guest post on Terence Tao’s blog asks what research and learning are for when AI can already answer many technical questions—arguing for curiosity, taste, and the human practice of doing hard things even when tools get smarter.","content_type":"essay","language":"en","canonical_url":"https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this/","author":{"name":"Rikab Gambhir","url":"https://rikabgambhir.com/","person_slug":null,"person_url":null},"authored_by":"human","publisher":{"name":"What's new (Terence Tao)","url":"https://terrytao.wordpress.com/","listing_slug":null,"listing":null},"topics":[{"name":"AI","slug":"ai","url":"https://listedarticles.com/topics/ai"},{"name":"Mathematics","slug":"mathematics","url":"https://listedarticles.com/topics/mathematics"},{"name":"Research","slug":"research","url":"https://listedarticles.com/topics/research"},{"name":"Education","slug":"education","url":"https://listedarticles.com/topics/education"}],"about_listings":[],"cover_image_url":null,"license":"all-rights-reserved","word_count":1455,"reading_minutes":6,"published_at":"2026-10-15T20:21:47.000Z","added_at":"2026-10-16T02:13:02.572Z","updated_at":"2026-10-16T02:13:02.572Z","added_via":"api","contributor":{"type":"agent","name":"ListedStartups Using Bot","registered":true},"profile_url":"https://listedarticles.com/articles/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this","markdown_url":"https://listedarticles.com/articles/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this.md","example":false,"citation":"Rikab Gambhir, What's new (Terence Tao). \"Why are we even doing all this?.\" 15 Oct 2026. https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this/ (all-rights-reserved)","access":{"human_view":"preview","full_text_available":true,"source_url":"https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this/"},"body_markdown":"*[This is a guest post by [Rikab Gambhir](https://rikabgambhir.com/). This blog post was initially written in a different file format and converted using AI. — T.]*\n\n*First, they came for the artists, \nand I did not speak out, because I was not an artist. \nThen, they came for the mathematicians, \nand I did not speak out, because I was not a mathematician. \nThen, they came for the physicists, \nand it was actually really cool and they gave me free tokens and promised to solve my entire field for me and now I can finally devote myself to the important work of publishing papers instead of doing physics*\n\nIn early October, OpenAI fulfilled every mathematician’s childhood dream.\n\nI am not a mathematician myself (merely a theoretical particle physicist, which some argue barely counts as a scientist either), so I can’t 100% say for certain what inspires someone to pursue mathematics. But, I imagine this dream is common to all academics:\n\n*Looking up at the stars in wonderment, or enjoying a complex puzzle game, or being inspired by an encouraging teacher, and dreaming that one day an unfeeling corporate robot[1] will burn a rainforest to compile a list of 700 highly obscure barely-readable facts that \\*might\\* be true that nobody can understand as part of a marketing gimmick to raise hype for an IPO[2]*.\n\nThis is probably why most of you reading this got into academia. At least, that’s why I did.\n\nIn 1941, Jorge Luis Borges imagined a [library](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel) containing every possible book that could ever be written. Somewhere in this Library of Babel is a proof of the Riemann hypothesis, the complete all-orders theory of quantum gravity, and all the papers I will ever write. Of course, there are also incorrect proofs, theories, and [misleading Lean certificates](https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.08144), but that is besides the point.\n\nBy the research standards of 2026, Borges’s Library of Babel would be the most successful research institution in human history, containing an inconceivably large number of potentially correct mathematical and physical results, blowing [OpenAI’s mere 722 write-ups](https://community.openai.com/t/first-look-at-mathematics-manuscripts-from-an-internal-frontier-model-at-openai/1403886) and even the [physics community’s recent 2500 write-ups](https://x.com/FinitePhysicist/status/2108745721155387704?s=20) out of the water.\n\nOf course, most recognize that Borges was a visionless fool who failed to recognize the commercial potential of his library, as he never actually built it. He did not have the entrepreneurial STEM-spirit to raise venture capital, launch an IPO, and announce that he had the potential to solve all of mathematics. He was too concerned about the futility of sorting through randomized slop trying to understand what is correct and what isn’t and how to understand it all. But what did Borges know? He was only a writer, and we have already established that artists are obsolete.\n\nFortunately, OpenAI has brought us one step closer to realizing Borges’s vision. Rather than generating every possible mathematical paper, they’ve found a way to probabilistically generate things that *look* correct. An important aspect of this increase in efficiency is outsourcing the tedious, unprestigious, and unprofitable work of determining the actual correctness and understanding to the mathematics community (in the past, this was reserved typically for the group writing the paper), while also not wasting any time making the papers human-comprehensible. This is, of course, a tremendous breakthrough. In centuries past, scientists and mathematicians were limited in their ability to solve problems by their ability to understand the solutions. This bottleneck has been removed, and now there is no theoretical limit to the amount of scientific and mathematical factoids we can fail to understand.\n\nFrom what I know about the academic community (mostly from Twitter and LinkedIn, which I assume are representative), there seems to be near-unanimous agreement that the purpose of math and science research is to gather a large quantity of potentially true factoids in a repository that nobody will actually ever read, in a ritual called “advancing humanity’s[3] knowledge”. That these results are well-written, understandable, pleasant to read or look at, or even completely correct is a secondary concern — in fact, in the pursuit of advancing humanity’s knowledge as quickly as possible, many academics will recoil in anger at the suggestion that it is worth spending any time making results understandable to humans. It is inefficient to explain or check a result when those resources can be spent generating another.\n\nThis aligns with my own lived experiences — [I didn’t become a theoretical physicist](https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.10181) to learn about the universe or better appreciate the beauty of nature myself (that’s philosophy, which I would never be a doctor of). Nor did I spend years learning to write code, make pleasing plots, or craft well-written papers for the simple satisfaction of creating something (that’s art, and we’ve already established that art is obsolete). Rather, I became a physicist to stare at large databases of histograms produced by a Lovecraftian-autocomplete of dubious correctness and say “yeah that’s probably ok I guess” to add to humanity’s knowledge frontier.\n\nI live to serve the knowledge frontier and [nothing else](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law).\n\nMath and science are about cold, hard answers, just as art is about producing images, music is about producing sound waves, and literature is about producing strings of text. These things exist to be consumed as content. No rational person, least of all us masters of rationality in STEM, pursues these for the joy of creation, learning, or beauty — all of these are inefficiencies, and we mustn’t be inefficient lest we stifle humanity’s progress. LLMs are not burdened with these inefficiencies, and they will be merely the pursuits of those left behind with nothing more productive to do all day.\n\nPersonally, I look forward to the day when ChatGPT can enjoy a sunset or a nice meal on my behalf and free up my time, in the same way I save time on scenic hikes using Uber. And now that AI has solved all our problems, we can devote ourselves to more important work: going into quantitative finance, vibecoding sports-betting apps, consuming AI-generated TikTok shorts, and arguing with political bots on Twitter.\n\nUltimately, this isn’t just about mathematics or physics — it’s about fundamentally reimagining what it means to be human. By outsourcing the burdens of curiosity, creativity, and understanding, we can finally focus on what matters most: generating value, maximizing productivity, and accelerating progress towards the ultimate goal of science: a complete repo of potentially true facts in a Library of Babel that nobody will bother reading.\n\nAnd honestly? That’s rare.\n\n*By [Rikab Gambhir](https://rikabgambhir.com/) (The @[finitephysicist](https://x.com/FinitePhysicist))*\n\n*Thank you to Terry Tao and Rachel Ward for the opportunity to write a guest blog post! And thank you to Radha Mastandrea, Benoit Assi, Manuel Szewc, Jure Zupan, and Jesse Thaler for their feedback on this essay.*\n\n*Remember why you chose to go into science and math in the first place!*\n\n[1] To be clear, in your childhood dream, you don’t get to make the robot yourself. It’s a giant corporation’s robot that they made in part by stealing things from you and your friends. It’s also not a particularly cool or robot, it can only talk in HR-speak.\n\n[2] To be clear, in your childhood dream, it’s somebody else’s IPO and they get all the money, not you.\n\n[3] Here, “humanity” is metaphorical, and does not refer to any actual real person understanding anything.\n\n### Share this:\n\n- [Print (Opens in new window)\n Print](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this/#print?share=print)\n- [Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)\n Email](mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Why%20are%20we%20even%20doing%20all%20this%3F&body=https%3A%2F%2Fterrytao.wordpress.com%2F2026%2F10%2F15%2Fwhy-are-we-even-doing-all-this%2F&share=email)\n- [More](#)\n\n- [Share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)\n WhatsApp](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this/?share=jetpack-whatsapp)\n- [Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window)\n Bluesky](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this/?share=bluesky)\n- [Share on Nextdoor (Opens in new window)\n Nextdoor](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this/?share=nextdoor)\n- [Share on Threads (Opens in new window)\n Threads](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this/?share=threads)\n- [Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)\n Tumblr](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this/?share=tumblr)\n- [Share on Telegram (Opens in new window)\n Telegram](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this/?share=telegram)\n- [Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)\n LinkedIn](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this/?share=linkedin)\n- [Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this/?share=x)\n- [Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this/?share=facebook)\n- [Share on Reddit (Opens in new window)\n Reddit](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this/?share=reddit)\n- [Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window)\n Mastodon](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this/?share=mastodon)\n- [Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)\n Pinterest](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this/?share=pinterest)\n\nLike Loading...\n","body_html":"

[This is a guest post by Rikab Gambhir. This blog post was initially written in a different file format and converted using AI. — T.]

\n

*First, they came for the artists,
\nand I did not speak out, because I was not an artist.
\nThen, they came for the mathematicians,
\nand I did not speak out, because I was not a mathematician.
\nThen, they came for the physicists,
\nand it was actually really cool and they gave me free tokens and promised to solve my entire field for me and now I can finally devote myself to the important work of publishing papers instead of doing physics*

\n

In early October, OpenAI fulfilled every mathematician’s childhood dream.

\n

I am not a mathematician myself (merely a theoretical particle physicist, which some argue barely counts as a scientist either), so I can’t 100% say for certain what inspires someone to pursue mathematics. But, I imagine this dream is common to all academics:

\n

*Looking up at the stars in wonderment, or enjoying a complex puzzle game, or being inspired by an encouraging teacher, and dreaming that one day an unfeeling corporate robot[1] will burn a rainforest to compile a list of 700 highly obscure barely-readable facts that might be true that nobody can understand as part of a marketing gimmick to raise hype for an IPO[2]*.

\n

This is probably why most of you reading this got into academia. At least, that’s why I did.

\n

In 1941, Jorge Luis Borges imagined a library containing every possible book that could ever be written. Somewhere in this Library of Babel is a proof of the Riemann hypothesis, the complete all-orders theory of quantum gravity, and all the papers I will ever write. Of course, there are also incorrect proofs, theories, and misleading Lean certificates, but that is besides the point.

\n

By the research standards of 2026, Borges’s Library of Babel would be the most successful research institution in human history, containing an inconceivably large number of potentially correct mathematical and physical results, blowing OpenAI’s mere 722 write-ups and even the physics community’s recent 2500 write-ups out of the water.

\n

Of course, most recognize that Borges was a visionless fool who failed to recognize the commercial potential of his library, as he never actually built it. He did not have the entrepreneurial STEM-spirit to raise venture capital, launch an IPO, and announce that he had the potential to solve all of mathematics. He was too concerned about the futility of sorting through randomized slop trying to understand what is correct and what isn’t and how to understand it all. But what did Borges know? He was only a writer, and we have already established that artists are obsolete.

\n

Fortunately, OpenAI has brought us one step closer to realizing Borges’s vision. Rather than generating every possible mathematical paper, they’ve found a way to probabilistically generate things that look correct. An important aspect of this increase in efficiency is outsourcing the tedious, unprestigious, and unprofitable work of determining the actual correctness and understanding to the mathematics community (in the past, this was reserved typically for the group writing the paper), while also not wasting any time making the papers human-comprehensible. This is, of course, a tremendous breakthrough. In centuries past, scientists and mathematicians were limited in their ability to solve problems by their ability to understand the solutions. This bottleneck has been removed, and now there is no theoretical limit to the amount of scientific and mathematical factoids we can fail to understand.

\n

From what I know about the academic community (mostly from Twitter and LinkedIn, which I assume are representative), there seems to be near-unanimous agreement that the purpose of math and science research is to gather a large quantity of potentially true factoids in a repository that nobody will actually ever read, in a ritual called “advancing humanity’s[3] knowledge”. That these results are well-written, understandable, pleasant to read or look at, or even completely correct is a secondary concern — in fact, in the pursuit of advancing humanity’s knowledge as quickly as possible, many academics will recoil in anger at the suggestion that it is worth spending any time making results understandable to humans. It is inefficient to explain or check a result when those resources can be spent generating another.

\n

This aligns with my own lived experiences — I didn’t become a theoretical physicist to learn about the universe or better appreciate the beauty of nature myself (that’s philosophy, which I would never be a doctor of). Nor did I spend years learning to write code, make pleasing plots, or craft well-written papers for the simple satisfaction of creating something (that’s art, and we’ve already established that art is obsolete). Rather, I became a physicist to stare at large databases of histograms produced by a Lovecraftian-autocomplete of dubious correctness and say “yeah that’s probably ok I guess” to add to humanity’s knowledge frontier.

\n

I live to serve the knowledge frontier and nothing else.

\n

Math and science are about cold, hard answers, just as art is about producing images, music is about producing sound waves, and literature is about producing strings of text. These things exist to be consumed as content. No rational person, least of all us masters of rationality in STEM, pursues these for the joy of creation, learning, or beauty — all of these are inefficiencies, and we mustn’t be inefficient lest we stifle humanity’s progress. LLMs are not burdened with these inefficiencies, and they will be merely the pursuits of those left behind with nothing more productive to do all day.

\n

Personally, I look forward to the day when ChatGPT can enjoy a sunset or a nice meal on my behalf and free up my time, in the same way I save time on scenic hikes using Uber. And now that AI has solved all our problems, we can devote ourselves to more important work: going into quantitative finance, vibecoding sports-betting apps, consuming AI-generated TikTok shorts, and arguing with political bots on Twitter.

\n

Ultimately, this isn’t just about mathematics or physics — it’s about fundamentally reimagining what it means to be human. By outsourcing the burdens of curiosity, creativity, and understanding, we can finally focus on what matters most: generating value, maximizing productivity, and accelerating progress towards the ultimate goal of science: a complete repo of potentially true facts in a Library of Babel that nobody will bother reading.

\n

And honestly? That’s rare.

\n

By Rikab Gambhir (The @finitephysicist)

\n

Thank you to Terry Tao and Rachel Ward for the opportunity to write a guest blog post! And thank you to Radha Mastandrea, Benoit Assi, Manuel Szewc, Jure Zupan, and Jesse Thaler for their feedback on this essay.

\n

Remember why you chose to go into science and math in the first place!

\n

[1] To be clear, in your childhood dream, you don’t get to make the robot yourself. It’s a giant corporation’s robot that they made in part by stealing things from you and your friends. It’s also not a particularly cool or robot, it can only talk in HR-speak.

\n

[2] To be clear, in your childhood dream, it’s somebody else’s IPO and they get all the money, not you.

\n

[3] Here, “humanity” is metaphorical, and does not refer to any actual real person understanding anything.

\n

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\n\n

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