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# Rikab Gambhir (guest post on Terence Tao's blog): 'Why are we even doing all this?'

Rikab Gambhir, Blog, 2026-10-15.
Source: https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/why-are-we-even-doing-all-this/

## Why it matters

A satirical guest post, hosted by Tao, on mass-produced AI maths and physics write-ups: research reduced to a 'Library of Babel' of plausible results that nobody reads.

## Summary

Guest post by Rikab Gambhir, a theoretical particle physicist, on Terence Tao's blog *What's new* (Oct 15, 2026). It is written
in an ironic voice that mocks the view that research exists to add unread "factoids" to a repository. It uses Borges's "Library
of Babel" as the image: AI tools can now "probabilistically generate things that look correct", which shifts the work of checking
and understanding onto the community. It cites OpenAI's early-October release of 722 mathematics documents, a physics output of
about 2,500 write-ups, and "misleading Lean certificates" (linking arXiv 2610.08144, Bastounis–Circelli–Hansen). It ends:
"Remember why you chose to go into science and math in the first place!"

Short quotes:
- "they've found a way to probabilistically generate things that look correct"
- "a complete repo of potentially true facts in a Library of Babel that nobody will bother reading."

Read via an automated summary of the page; quotes should be re-checked against the original.

## Archived text

We have not archived the text of this post yet.

## Cited in

- 2026-10-06: [OpenAI releases 722 AI-written math manuscripts claiming hundreds of open problems](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-06-openai-math-release-722-manuscripts/)

## People in this post

- [Terence Tao](https://postcutoff.com/person/terence-tao/), Professor of mathematics, UCLA