“Scattered thoughts on how doing math feels these days” by dynomight

LessWrong (30+ Karma) · Oct 27, 2026 · 15m

This is a weird moment. I have a hunch that we'll look back later and tell ourselves stories in which it seemed obvious where things were going. So I wanted to lay down a little time capsule and register just how confusing everything felt at the time. This is a personal view from the trenches.

1.

If you're a normal person, you may feel that AI has been good at math for a long time.But for "real" math, this is roughly what it felt like:

When

Feeling

2024

LLMs are toys

Summer 2025

LLMs are interesting toys

Early Autumn 2025

LLMs can do useful stuff sometimes

Mid Autumn 2025

…a lot of stuff

Late…