UC Berkeley AI Homework: Professor Stops Grading

Borcherds said he is no longer sure whether to encourage students to enter the math department. Five years ago, he thought being a mathematician was one of the safest careers from the AI boom. Now he is not so certain. "If AI continues to improve at present rate, then, in a few years, there'll be nothing human mathematicians can do that AI can't do better," he said.

He said he does not know what to advise students. "I have no idea what to advise. I even asked ChatGPT this exact question, and even ChatGPT said it didn't have any idea what was going to happen," Borcherds said. He described plenty of "inertia" in the academic system and said he would not be surprised if the math department stayed the same for a couple of years despite AI advances.

He compared the situation to physical paper journals, which still publish even though they have been "utterly pointless" for two decades. "There have been plenty of technical breakthroughs in the past — hand weaving was put out of business by looms, and horses were put out of business by motor cars, and so on," Borcherds said. "This is the first time anything like this has happened in mathematics, though."

For students in Tunisia and elsewhere, the story signals that AI is changing how universities assess learning. If homework can be solved by AI, grades may shift toward exams, oral presentations or project work that is harder to automate. That could affect how courses are taught well beyond Berkeley.

For families thinking about future careers, the message is more uncertain. Borcherds, a leading mathematician, says even his field is no longer clearly safe from AI. There is no announced change to Tunisian university AI policies in this story, and no timeline for how grading practices might evolve locally. Readers should treat the Berkeley case as a signal, not a global rule.