CSCI2953-C

Theoretical Computer Science in the Age of AI

Spring 2027

AI models are now producing research-level results in theoretical computer science (TCS), including many claimed proofs of long-open conjectures. This course will examine what TCS is for, and how it should be done, in light of that. Throughout the semester we will read and discuss classic essays on the nature of mathematics alongside recent writing by mathematicians and theorists responding to the new AI landscape. Against that backdrop, the course will provide the classical background these new results assume, and students will draw on this background to present some of these breakthrough results to the class, assessing both what is claimed and how it was produced. The course will culminate in group projects in which students, with AI models as collaborators, will push the results they presented further through original conceptual work, asking new questions rather than tightening bounds.