{"slug": "how-can-we-effectively-prompt-ai-to-do-mathematics", "title": "How can we effectively prompt AI to do mathematics?", "summary": "A discussion on Reddit's mathematics community highlights the nuanced art of prompting AI systems to solve mathematical problems, citing a document by Aaron Lou that demonstrates a carefully constructed prompt for the Jacobian conjecture rather than a simple 'solve this' request. The author suggests that mathematicians may currently have an edge over AI in meta-level thinking about problem-solving strategies, and asks for observations from others experimenting with AI in mathematics research.", "body_md": "This came as a result of reading [this document](https://aaronlou.com/jacobian_counterexample_prompt.pdf) relating to the prompt of the jacobian conjecture. I attach a picture of page-2:\n\nAs can be seen there seems to be some nuance into how the prompt is constructed, it just didn't go \"go solve this problem\". So, I'd like to think there is a meta level \"art\" to prompting an AI to think about solving a math problem, and that maybe this meta level thinking capabilities are something that mathematicians can abstract much more easier than AI can at this point.\n\nHence, my question, what are some observations you have made in your own experiments with AI in mathematics research related to prompting? or maybe even before that, how much of a scope exists in this?", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/how-can-we-effectively-prompt-ai-to-do-mathematics", "canonical_source": "https://mathoverflow.net/questions/513911/how-can-we-effectively-prompt-ai-to-do-mathematics", "published_at": "2026-08-04 10:04:48+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-17 02:41:17.220369+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "large-language-models", "ai-research"], "entities": ["Aaron Lou", "Reddit"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/how-can-we-effectively-prompt-ai-to-do-mathematics", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/how-can-we-effectively-prompt-ai-to-do-mathematics.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/how-can-we-effectively-prompt-ai-to-do-mathematics.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/how-can-we-effectively-prompt-ai-to-do-mathematics.jsonld"}}