In late September and early October, we (three graduate students from MIT) conducted a survey of early career mathematicians. Our goal was to give grad students and postdocs a centralized, targeted platform to share their views on AI. The personal stakes are highest for grad students and postdocs, who face job insecurity and funding instability. We worry that our concerns will be deprioritized, or even misrepresented, without collective resources like this survey.
On October 29th, we posted the results of this survey to the arXiv (history and overview). In the end, over 260 mathematicians, representing around 60 institutions and 5 countries, filled the survey out. Many of them left long, thoughtful free responses in addition to answering the multiple choice questions.
This post is an invitation to take a look at the survey results. Some questions surprised and/or dismayed us: in particular, Question 3.2, Question 3.3, and Question 5.2. It’s also important to point out that nearly all of the responses were collected before October 6th: we nervously wonder how different this data would look today. As journals, hiring committees, and faculty members make decisions about the community’s future, we urge you to take these survey results into account — and keep proactively talking with the junior researchers in your orbits.
AI was not used to write/edit the post or the arXiv article.
Received 2 November 2026.
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