AI Isn't Outthinking Mathematicians. It's Out-Remembering Them
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The key advantage may not be superior reasoning, but a virtually unlimited symbolic working memory.
When an AI system solves a difficult mathematical problem, the usual explanation is that it has become more intelligent.
Perhaps it has absorbed millions of mathematical examples. Perhaps reinforcement learning has taught it better reasoning strategies. Perhaps it is beginning to develop something resembling genuine mathematical intuition.
All of these explanations may contain some truth. But they overlook a simpler possibility:
AI has access to a vastly larger working memory than the human brain.
Or, more precisely, it has access to an enormous external symbolic workspace that performs many of the functions that working memory performs in humans.