More than 100 students, professors and postdoctoral researchers gathered in a mathematics department lecture hall for a town hall on AI and research. The meeting was called by PhD students Anna Brandenberger, Dora Woodruff and Hanna Mularczyk to discuss what the technology could mean for their work and future in the field.

The gathering followed OpenAI’s Sept. 8 announcement that its AI agents had solved a Millennium Prize Problem involving the Navier-Stokes equations, which describe the motion of fluids. The problems were set out in 2000, and solutions carry a $1 million prize. The company’s publication, the following week, of proofs for nearly 400 other previously unsolved problems further unsettled researchers.

For doctoral students, the advances raise questions about what mathematicians will do if AI systems can tackle work once seen as the province of highly trained researchers. Students have begun considering whether to leave the field, reflecting concerns not only about jobs but also about the purpose of years of study and research.

The developments have not resolved those questions. OpenAI’s claims have instead brought them into sharper focus at MIT, where students and researchers are trying to understand how rapidly changing AI tools may reshape mathematics and the careers built around it.