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NewsMaterial2 min readDisconfirmAI Editorial

Richard Borcherds, Mathematics Professor at the University of California, Berkeley: AI Renders Homework Grading Meaningless

Mathematics professor Richard Borcherds of the University of California, Berkeley, has publicly stated that grading mathematics homework is no longer meaningful due to students' widespread use of AI and its rapidly improving capabilities. He currently only checks for complete submission and admits uncertainty about whether he should still encourage students to major in mathematics.

2026-11-08 17:35 GMT+8

Richard Borcherds, a mathematics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, recently stated publicly that he no longer grades his students' homework. His reasoning is straightforward: students widely use AI to complete assignments, and AI capabilities are continuing to improve rapidly, making it impossible to assess students' true mathematical proficiency by checking the correctness of these submissions. He admitted that he currently only verifies whether assignments have been submitted in full, acknowledging that this is not an ideal system but noting there is no alternative available at present.

Borcherds's assessment is based on a specific observation: he has noticed that many students have long relied on AI to complete their homework and consistently achieve top grades. Meanwhile, OpenAI recently announced that its AI models had solved a series of mathematical problems, including the existence and smoothness problem for Navier-Stokes equations. From this, Borcherds concluded that if AI continues to advance at its current pace, there will soon be nothing human mathematicians can do that AI cannot do better.

This assessment also touches on more practical institutional realities. The University of California, Berkeley previously tested AI detection tools such as Turnitin and Rumi, ultimately determining they were unsuitable for standardized use. A case from an Australian university further illustrates the issue: that institution's AI detector flagged nearly 6,000 suspected cases of misconduct in 2024, 90% of which were later confirmed to be false positives. This means that attempting to distinguish between human-written and AI-generated work through technological means is currently unfeasible.

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Borcherds's stance thus extends to a more fundamental question: whether young people should still be encouraged to pursue mathematics as a major. He recalled that at the beginning of the AI boom five years ago, mathematics was considered one of the safest career choices. Now, even he is unsure how to advise. He even posed this question to ChatGPT, which replied that it, too, did not know what the future held.

It should be noted that Borcherds's claim that AI will surpass human mathematicians within a few years is a prediction, not an established fact. The specific scope and verification status of OpenAI's claimed solution to the Navier-Stokes problem have not yet received independent confirmation. Furthermore, the value of mathematics as a discipline—including understanding structure, the aesthetics of proof, and cross-domain modeling capabilities—is not entirely equivalent to problem-solving speed. Borcherds's position is closer to an honest acknowledgment of the current failure of assessment systems rather than a final verdict on the future of the field of mathematics.

Sources

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