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Why This Is the Most Exciting Time to Be Human | Ken Ono, Axiom Math

EO19:30Added Aug 31, 2026

Ken Ono, Founding Mathematician at Axiom Math and Commonwealth Professor of Mathematics at the University of Virginia, explains why competing with AI on know...

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

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  1. Intro

  2. 00:00Exactly one year ago, I was happy
  3. 00:03golucky university professor writing my
  4. 00:05papers. I would have described myself as
  5. 00:08someone who had enjoyed the privilege of
  6. 00:11being good at mathematics. And then
  7. 00:14there was a dramatic change. Now I'm
  8. 00:17deeply troubled.
  9. 00:19For the first time, I struggled to
  10. 00:21assemble questions that chatt would get
  11. 00:24wrong. These models know more facts than
  12. 00:28any human you would ever find. I was
  13. 00:30devastated. Was thinking, how am I going
  14. 00:34to stay ahead of AI? Is that I actually
  15. 00:36think that's the wrong question.
  16. 00:38Knowledge quickly became cheap. If our
  17. 00:41goal is to always stay ahead of AI, then
  18. 00:45I think we're going to lose. My name is
  19. 00:47Ken Ono. I'm a mathematician and I also
  20. 00:50work in the space called AI for math.
  21. 00:52I'm a professor at the University of
  22. 00:53Virginia on leave and I'm the founding
  23. 00:55mathematician at Axiom Math.

  24. What Remains When the Machine Knows More

  25. 01:07The very first time I heard the term
  26. 01:11artificial intelligence was in 1993 and
  27. 01:15I met a faculty member who said I work
  28. 01:18in artificial intelligence. My very
  29. 01:21first
  30. 01:23words [music]
  31. 01:23were, "Oh, that's interesting." Um, I
  32. 01:27specialize in natural intelligence and I
  33. 01:30was cocky. I would have my butt handed
  34. 01:32to me many times for using words like
  35. 01:34that. But that's where I came from.
  36. 01:38Exactly one year ago, I was a happy
  37. 01:41golucky university professor writing my
  38. 01:44papers, enjoying life at the University
  39. 01:46of Virginia. And then there was a
  40. 01:48dramatic change. I came face tof face
  41. 01:51with large language models at work. The
  42. 01:54Frontier Math program where this company
  43. 01:56based in Berkeley called Epoch AI hired
  44. 01:59professional mathematicians from around
  45. 02:01the world to assemble very difficult
  46. 02:03math problems and their goal was to
  47. 02:05assess the capabilities of large
  48. 02:07language models as as they improve. For
  49. 02:10the first time, I struggled to assemble
  50. 02:14questions that chat GPT would get wrong.
  51. 02:17I was devastated at the time. time. I
  52. 02:19was one of the few scientists who had
  53. 02:21been given access [music] to these
  54. 02:23state-of-the-art models. And I had to be
  55. 02:25patient for a few months to go by before
  56. 02:28the world did recognize that, [music]
  57. 02:31yeah, these models know so much. These
  58. 02:34models know more facts than any human
  59. 02:38you would ever find. So, for a few
  60. 02:40months, I was devastated. I was
  61. 02:42thinking, how am I going to stay [music]
  62. 02:45ahead of AI? I actually think that's the
  63. 02:47wrong question. If our goal is to always
  64. 02:50stay ahead of AI, then uh I think we're
  65. 02:54going to lose.
  66. 02:56Nobody would be interested in watching
  67. 02:58Usain Bolt race against a motorcycle in
  68. 03:01the one mile run. It's not a fair race.
  69. 03:04But we still watch the Olympics. We as a
  70. 03:07society now know how to accept that
  71. 03:10machines can outperform humans in every
  72. 03:14physical way. But we're still now coming
  73. 03:16to grips with the fact that the brain,
  74. 03:19deep inquiry computers have caught up.
  75. 03:22The large language models should be
  76. 03:24thought of as the most extraordinary
  77. 03:26librarian the world has ever seen. If
  78. 03:28[music] it has been written down, the
  79. 03:30large language model has probably seen
  80. 03:32it. If it's on YouTube, large language
  81. 03:35model has probably been trained on it.
  82. 03:37If you read a newspaper article by the
  83. 03:39afternoon, the large language model has
  84. 03:41probably seen it. Good luck with
  85. 03:43competing [music] with that ability to
  86. 03:45collect information. It information
  87. 03:48knowledge is now cheap, but how you use
  88. 03:51it and how you verify it has become more
  89. 03:54expensive. Do you want your librarian to
  90. 03:56be your neurosurgeon? [music] Do you
  91. 03:58want your librarian to be your air
  92. 04:01traffic controller somehow keeping an
  93. 04:03eye on the hundreds of planes that are
  94. 04:05flying over North America or Korea? No
  95. 04:08way. because that human judgment is
  96. 04:11important. My identity has changed.
  97. 04:14My view on intelligence now has changed
  98. 04:17quite a bit. The ability to reason, make
  99. 04:20proper inferences, [music]
  100. 04:22whether you can do it quickly or slowly,
  101. 04:24it doesn't matter. But can you create a
  102. 04:27new concept? Can you generate ideas?
  103. 04:31[music] Can you string concepts together
  104. 04:34in a deep way? That is intelligence.
  105. 04:37That is not the regurgitation of facts
  106. 04:39and we're not good at teaching that. Are
  107. 04:41you good at setting the dials [music] to
  108. 04:43design a system from scratch that was
  109. 04:45going to produce some gadget whether
  110. 04:48it's as an industry [music] or a
  111. 04:50computer program or perhaps a whole new
  112. 04:52area of science. [music] That's deep
  113. 04:54intelligence and it rarely is the form
  114. 04:58that [music] is recognized in schools at
  115. 05:01any level. Do you have the ability to
  116. 05:03recognize patterns [music]
  117. 05:05in areas of thought that can be
  118. 05:07transferred from one discipline to
  119. 05:10another so that you can propel another
  120. 05:12area forward? I would have said 5 years
  121. 05:15ago, oh that's just being in the right
  122. 05:17spot at the right time. But that's
  123. 05:19unfair being in the right spot at the
  124. 05:21right time. But you still have to make
  125. 05:23that observation. So there's an element
  126. 05:25of recognizing a target of opportunity
  127. 05:28that is genius. [music]
  128. 05:30And I don't use genius very lightly. The
  129. 05:33student, the worker who becomes an
  130. 05:36expert in their niche field [music]
  131. 05:38because they plug away and learn
  132. 05:40something new about that field every day
  133. 05:43is so hard-nosed and is [music] so
  134. 05:46committed that that is also intelligence
  135. 05:49and a kind of genius that we need to
  136. 05:52recognize.
  137. 05:57I have a very unique [music]

  138. My Search for Ramanujan - Finding the Genius the System Misses

  139. 05:59personal story that I'm a son of a
  140. 06:01mathematician. When I was a child, I was
  141. 06:04considered gifted in mathematics and my
  142. 06:06parents decided at an early age that I
  143. 06:10was going to be a mathematician. My
  144. 06:11parents [music] actually had a plan for
  145. 06:14all three of the boys. My oldest brother
  146. 06:17was going to be a pianist. He did it. I
  147. 06:19was the [music] youngest was going to be
  148. 06:20a mathematician. And the middle son, who
  149. 06:23they said wasn't good at math and wasn't
  150. 06:26gifted in music, well, he should just go
  151. 06:28work in [music] a bank, just make a
  152. 06:30living, which inspired him to do great
  153. 06:33things. My brother Santa uh has gone on
  154. 06:36to become the president of the
  155. 06:37University of Michigan. He's [music] a
  156. 06:39very distinguished scientist, and he was
  157. 06:41literally driven by this need to prove
  158. 06:44that his early assessment [music] was
  159. 06:48incorrect. For me, it almost went in a
  160. 06:51very bad way. I dropped out of high
  161. 06:53school. The last thing I wanted to be in
  162. 06:55[music] high school was anything my
  163. 06:57parents wanted me to be. I didn't want
  164. 07:00to be the one Asian kid in class that
  165. 07:02was expected to be good at math when all
  166. 07:05the other kids like had lives. I
  167. 07:07couldn't play baseball, you know, the
  168. 07:09all-American pastime. I I and I hated
  169. 07:13it.
  170. 07:14In April of 1984, I was of the mindset
  171. 07:18that I'm going to run away from home.
  172. 07:20I'm never going to see my parents again,
  173. 07:22[music] and I don't care about that.
  174. 07:24That's I'm going to strike out on my
  175. 07:26own. In April 1984, a letter came to the
  176. 07:29house addressed to my father. It was on
  177. 07:32this yellowed piece of paper that looked
  178. 07:34like it might as well have been 100
  179. 07:35years old. It was a letter written by
  180. 07:38Janaki Amal who was a widow of the
  181. 07:41Indian mathematician Romanagen. and she
  182. 07:43thanked my father for making a small
  183. 07:46gift to help commission a statue in in
  184. 07:50memory of Romanen and me seeing my dad
  185. 07:53cry and he [music] never cried who's
  186. 07:56very almost no emotions this letter
  187. 07:59brought him to tears and he brought this
  188. 08:02letter to [music] me afterwards I have
  189. 08:04to tell someone what this is about so
  190. 08:07Romanagen it turned out I learned that
  191. 08:09day was a mystic an autodidact He had
  192. 08:13visions of mathematics that his [music]
  193. 08:15goddess he believed gave him gifts of
  194. 08:18formulas that he would write down in his
  195. 08:20notebooks. Because of his passion for
  196. 08:22mathematics, he didn't study in any of
  197. 08:25his other courses. So, he ended up
  198. 08:27flunking out of college twice. Here's my
  199. 08:29dad talking about someone who was a
  200. 08:31two-time college dropout, but had left
  201. 08:33behind three notebooks filled with
  202. 08:36formulas that he was studying himself.
  203. 08:40And I only learned later one of the
  204. 08:42reasons that my father was so in love
  205. 08:45[music] with the story of Romanagen is
  206. 08:47because Romanen had actually represented
  207. 08:51hope for him. His one chance in life as
  208. 08:54a Japanese mathematician post World War
  209. 08:57II. My father wanted to be a
  210. 09:00mathematician but he went to college at
  211. 09:02a time when the world was at war. He
  212. 09:05loved mathematics as a way of escaping
  213. 09:08from [music]
  214. 09:08long lines waiting for food. In the
  215. 09:11aftermath of World War II, the United
  216. 09:14States sent some of [music] their best
  217. 09:16mathematicians to Japan to rebuild the
  218. 09:18universities and train the
  219. 09:20mathematicians. My father first learned
  220. 09:22about Romanagen at [music] the
  221. 09:24conference where he was discovered by a
  222. 09:28Princeton professor who invited him to
  223. 09:30[music] study with him at Princeton
  224. 09:32launching his career. Romanian died at a
  225. 09:35very early age [music] at 32. He was
  226. 09:39nearly forgotten and the mathematicians
  227. 09:41of the world contributed small gifts to
  228. 09:44give Mrs. Romanagen the statue that the
  229. 09:47government had promised her in 1920.
  230. 09:51That letter and a photograph that she
  231. 09:53shared with us of the statue, it
  232. 09:56represented him remembering what it was
  233. 09:58like for [music] him to struggle and the
  234. 10:01moment where he got his chance. So what
  235. 10:04did Romanen mean to me that day? It gave
  236. 10:07me hope in the following. [music]
  237. 10:09It was the first time I heard my parents
  238. 10:11say and look up to like a hero someone
  239. 10:14who hadn't gone to Harvard or Princeton
  240. 10:16and was a perfect student. On the
  241. 10:18contrary, it turned out my father's hero
  242. 10:21was a two-time college dropout. And I
  243. 10:24needed [music] that. Later at the
  244. 10:26University of Chicago, I was a horrible
  245. 10:28student. But right before my senior
  246. 10:31year, flipping through the channels on
  247. 10:33the television, I saw a video public
  248. 10:36broadcasting service documentary about
  249. 10:38Romanen, who I hadn't thought about in
  250. 10:40years. And I was fascinated because here
  251. 10:43on in color on TV were was more than the
  252. 10:47vaguest of outlines about Roman that my
  253. 10:50dad told me. There was the whole story
  254. 10:52and it kind of jumpstarted me. I had a
  255. 10:56lot of catching up to do there. where I
  256. 10:58became a good student and it was [music]
  257. 11:00then when the biography of Romanen came
  258. 11:02out called the man who knew infinity
  259. 11:04maybe it was a sign maybe I was meant to
  260. 11:07follow Romanagen and so I started to
  261. 11:09work on a [music] thesis based on his
  262. 11:11work and I'm so glad I made that choice
  263. 11:14because by the end of my PhD uh what I
  264. 11:17worked [music] on was called the theory
  265. 11:18of gowal representations which was meant
  266. 11:21to study Romanogen's backwater
  267. 11:23mathematics but by 1993 the bombshell
  268. 11:27news and mathematics for the end of the
  269. 11:2920th century was a proof of from last
  270. 11:32theorem and the proof of form's last
  271. 11:34theorem depend on these galwis
  272. 11:36representations. I don't know what it is
  273. 11:38following Roman every time he appeared
  274. 11:41has been like the best decision I've
  275. 11:43ever made in my life and every one of
  276. 11:46those could have gone a different way.
  277. 11:49So one important theme about Romanagen
  278. 11:52for me is where would we be and I don't
  279. 11:55mean just me as a mathematician [music]
  280. 11:56where would we all collectively be had
  281. 11:59he not been discovered that is a world I
  282. 12:02cannot fathom and because of that you're
  283. 12:05left wondering there must be other
  284. 12:07Romanogens walking planet earth maybe
  285. 12:10they don't come from privilege how do we
  286. 12:13find them and how do we nurture them
  287. 12:16when we find them I was lucky enough for
  288. 12:18a number of years to run a program
  289. 12:20called the spirit of Romanagen where we
  290. 12:22looked for undiscovered [music] talent
  291. 12:25and what's interesting about this my
  292. 12:27boss my former student Karina Hong
  293. 12:29studied with me in a a research program
  294. 12:31she was one of our first recipients we
  295. 12:34discovered her makes me wonder where she
  296. 12:36would be today had she [music] not
  297. 12:38received this spirit of Romanagen
  298. 12:40fellowship there are I am sure many many
  299. 12:46undiscovered folks that we need to find.
  300. 12:49I think the idea, the ability and the
  301. 12:52potential [music] to be someone like
  302. 12:54Romanagen or at least creative in a
  303. 12:56productive way, I think it resides in us
  304. 12:59all. You just have [music] to give
  305. 13:01students of all ages the opportunity to
  306. 13:03a be brave enough to act on their c
  307. 13:06curiosity [music] and then offer them a
  308. 13:08system that embraces it.

  309. What's Left to Teach When Knowledge is Free

  310. 13:13Some of your best students in Korea, the
  311. 13:15best students in United States, best
  312. 13:16students worldwide, they're stressed out
  313. 13:18in high school. They're probably even
  314. 13:19stressed out in in middle school
  315. 13:21worrying about how do I get into the
  316. 13:23right high school? How do I get into the
  317. 13:26right college? Will I get the right test
  318. 13:28scores? If you're motivated to
  319. 13:29participate in those just because they
  320. 13:31are checkboxes, that's messed up. And
  321. 13:34I'm not saying that you shouldn't do
  322. 13:36that because I don't want to be ignorant
  323. 13:39and say don't participate in the system
  324. 13:40that will ultimately decide your fate
  325. 13:43with regard to college. But pause and
  326. 13:45recognize you're participating in that
  327. 13:47system. Education starts with inspiring
  328. 13:51people to want to know more about the
  329. 13:53world in which they live. wanting to
  330. 13:55know more about the cultures of the
  331. 13:58world because we share the world
  332. 14:00together and appreciate what is
  333. 14:02different in other parts of the world
  334. 14:04and in other cultures because that's why
  335. 14:07I went to college, right? I wanted to
  336. 14:09learn about those things. That's why I
  337. 14:10travel the world. [music] If you have
  338. 14:13children that are infants, how wonderful
  339. 14:15is it to play with them, say with like a
  340. 14:18stack of boxes or building blocks, play
  341. 14:21for children is science. They're not
  342. 14:25really learning about gravity, but
  343. 14:27they're really learning about gravity.
  344. 14:29They may pile blocks on top of the other
  345. 14:31and knock them over and giggle and
  346. 14:33they'll do it again. Think about how
  347. 14:35wonderful the world is [music] when you
  348. 14:37get to learn about it without worrying
  349. 14:40about what your future and what your
  350. 14:42reputation will [music] be. I want when
  351. 14:45my students are in my class to say,
  352. 14:46"This is a wonderful class, Professor
  353. 14:48Ono, because the subject is beautiful."
  354. 14:51and I do my very best to try to get that
  355. 14:53across. But I'm not a fool. I know that
  356. 14:56I'm participating in a system where
  357. 14:58[music] at the end of the day, the
  358. 15:00students are worried, am I going to get
  359. 15:02an A or [music] not? And how will that
  360. 15:04impact my ability to go to graduate
  361. 15:07school in math or medical school or law
  362. 15:09school because that GPA is [music] so
  363. 15:12important? And I hate that. I utterly
  364. 15:16hate that. Why? It's an opportunity
  365. 15:18lost. What I like about AI and this is
  366. 15:22actually how I transitioned from being
  367. 15:25devastated by AI has already read my
  368. 15:28papers. It understands my papers better
  369. 15:30than I remember them. [music] Think
  370. 15:31about all the subjects in adjacent areas
  371. 15:34of mathematics that I could just ask AI
  372. 15:36about and the AI is not going to laugh
  373. 15:38at me and it as a great librarian will
  374. 15:42dutifully answer [music] any question I
  375. 15:44would ask. the access to knowledge. If
  376. 15:47you are privileged enough to have access
  377. 15:49to the internet and [music] you are
  378. 15:50privileged enough to be able to afford
  379. 15:53access to a large language model,
  380. 15:55knowledge quickly became cheap. In the
  381. 15:57United States, it could cost $80,000 to
  382. 16:00spend one year uh attending a
  383. 16:02university. Um, [music] and here's the
  384. 16:04dirty secret. I could learn everything
  385. 16:07that you would learn bookwise
  386. 16:10academically from a large language model
  387. 16:12at my own pace. probably accelerated
  388. 16:15[music] with a large language model.
  389. 16:16What I would not get would be the human
  390. 16:19access, how the right questions were
  391. 16:22derived, [music] what the next questions
  392. 16:23in a field might be. That's why we still
  393. 16:25go to college and that's why we still
  394. 16:27need professors. But all of the other
  395. 16:29stuff, the tutoring, the precision
  396. 16:31learning that AI can help with. I
  397. 16:35actually believe that we in this world
  398. 16:39aren't doing the best we can at
  399. 16:42educating our children. And I don't say
  400. 16:45that to be critical of educators. I am
  401. 16:48an educator.
  402. 16:50But it's always a treat to visit a
  403. 16:53kindergarten class, a first grade class
  404. 16:56when it's bring your parent to school
  405. 16:58day so they can talk about what they do.
  406. 17:00Oh, I know all the prime numbers or I'm
  407. 17:02really good at adding that wonder and I
  408. 17:05want to just bottle up this energy
  409. 17:07because if we could maintain that wonder
  410. 17:10in the world and the energy that
  411. 17:13children have when everything around
  412. 17:16them is new. Think about where we would
  413. 17:19be today.
  414. 17:21Said go find your passion.
  415. 17:24The best scientists in the world need to
  416. 17:26still view the world as a wondrous
  417. 17:28thing. [music] The best doctors in the
  418. 17:30world still need to recognize that what
  419. 17:33they practice is supposed to come from a
  420. 17:35place of benevolence. Not I have this
  421. 17:37practice, but I'm a university professor
  422. 17:39that happens to be has a clinical
  423. 17:41practice and I'm going to write articles
  424. 17:42about my patients. I think that's messed
  425. 17:44up. If we pay so much attention on and
  426. 17:48value so much perfection and speed in
  427. 17:52ordinary test taking, [music] then how
  428. 17:54are we training someone to be the next
  429. 17:57Einstein or the next you name [music]
  430. 18:00famous professor was just wondering out
  431. 18:03loud in their lab, I wonder if such and
  432. 18:05such is true. For my children, I want
  433. 18:09them to be passionate about the world
  434. 18:12that they live in. And if you're
  435. 18:13passionate about the world that you you
  436. 18:15live in, then you're deeply worried
  437. 18:17about the climate. You're deeply worried
  438. 18:19about the conflict [music] that exists
  439. 18:21between different cultures, which
  440. 18:23there's wars all over the place. How can
  441. 18:25that happen? Who are the people that you
  442. 18:27really look up to the most? Maybe they
  443. 18:30are the oddballs in [snorts] in my
  444. 18:32country in the United States where
  445. 18:33education is so expensive. You could
  446. 18:36come out of college with $150,000 in
  447. 18:39debt and then you may go on to a
  448. 18:41professional school acrewing another
  449. 18:43$200,000 in debt and [music] then three
  450. 18:45years later discovering I can't stand
  451. 18:47the sight of blood but now I can't leave
  452. 18:50my profession because I have all of
  453. 18:52these loans. That is purgatory.
  454. 18:56You then are stuck. And that's when your
  455. 19:00life is well I go to work [music]
  456. 19:02because it pays the bills. Who owns your
  457. 19:05identity? You do.