A 58-Year-Old Mathematician's Life Advice about AI | Ken Ono, Axiom Math
In a Nutshell
Mathematician Ken Ono argues that AI's automation of mental work will force a shift from rote technique-learning to genuine discovery and formalization, urging students and researchers to treat AI as a co-pilot rather than a replacement. He warns that obsession with benchmarks, comparisons, and algorithmic gatekeeping erodes individuality and human judgment, which remain essential in high-stakes decisions. The core advice is to stop living by others' metrics, reject screen addiction, and give yourself permission to pursue your own path and passions before it's too late.
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Ken Ono is a mathematician working at Axiom Math and the University of Virginia. In fifth grade, he placed third in a math contest at Hampton Elementary School. His father, a famous mathematician, kept the plaque from that contest until his death in January. Ono initially interpreted the event as a failure for 50 years of his life, but realized his father valued that he wanted to do well rather than the ranking itself.
Modern society places excessive emphasis on benchmarks, as seen with AI firms competing for state-of-the-art large language model scores. Ono questions whether a higher IQ score means someone is smarter. He argues that living up to standards set by others is toxic because it prevents people from living for themselves. The brutal truth is that unless you are LeBron James, Rafael Nadal, or a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, you will always find someone who appears to achieve more, and this prevents giving yourself permission to live the life meant for you.
Almost exactly one year ago, Ono was part of a group of mathematicians hired by Epoch AI to write very difficult math problems as benchmarks for state-of-the-art large language models. He found it difficult to write some problems and was frightened by how far the models had advanced when studying their reasoning traces. This triggered an identity crisis comparable to a late 19th-century sharecropper facing the first combustion engine tractor, recognizing there might be no future for their work.
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