Axiom Maths

I'm a mathematician, and I also work in the space called AI for Math.

I'm a professor at the University of Virginia on leave, and I'm the founding mathematician at Axiom Math.

[gentle music] [keyboard clacking] The very first time I heard the term artificial intelligence was in 1993, and I met a faculty member who said, "I work in artificial intelligence." My very first words were, "Oh, that's interesting.

Um, I specialize in natural intelligence." And I was cocky.

I'm a mathematician, and I also work in the space called AI4Math.

I'm a professor at the University of Virginia on leave, and I'm the founding mathematician at Axiom Math.

[gentle music] [keyboard clacking] The very first time I heard the term artificial intelligence was in 1993, and I met a faculty member who said, "I work in artificial intelligence." My very first words were, "Oh, that's interesting.

Um, I specialize in natural intelligence." And I was cocky.

Two days after the announcement, I found myself in a classroom at the University of California, Berkeley, surrounded by some 150 students, postdocs, and professors.

The mathematician Ken Ono, who left academia for an AI startup called Axiom Math, was scheduled to give a talk.

You might be graduating into a profession that might not even exist, or that will be very different than what you expected, Ono told them.

You need to brace.

Um, the other thing is, just a little interesting thing about choosing students for, uh, to go in top set, and I find that quite difficult, um, because sometimes I, I sort of fill it with people in year seven who were, like, really, uh, really strong in their SATs, but there's always that sort of, you know, some students that are sort of all close together, and I can't figure out which one to put in.

We launched Axiom Maths this year, and Axiom Maths is this fantastic opportunity.

Um, it's funded, so we were able to offer as a TLR.

Someone on my team is responsible.

Yeah.

So we basically can have, I think you can have about, say, initially you might start with about 12 students and then...

So we gave them this little task where it was, um, do this little maths, um, Axiom Maths problem, which was a really lovely little problem, and then finish the problem, and then at the bottom, I want, I want to say, "Do you want to do the Axiom Maths Club after school every Wednesday for the whole year? Um, rate it on a scale of one to 10, and then if you want to say something, write on the line why you've rated it that way." And we had all these gorgeous responses from kids who were like, "10 out of 10.

I wanna do Axiom Maths because I love maths, and I, and I want to..." So one of them said, "I want to, um, work with people that are similar to me." So basically, like, looking for his maths people in the school, and he'll get to be together with them.