A Matter of Interest: Understanding Interestingness of Math Problems in Humans and Language Models

ArXi:2511.08548v2 Announce Type: replace The evolution of mathematics is shaped importantly by interestingness: researchers choose which problems to pursue, and students choose which problems to engage with, based on expectations of interest and challenge. As AI systems, particularly large language models (LLMs) that operate flexibly over natural language and formal mathematics, are increasingly used in mathematics research and education, it becomes crucial to characterize how closely their judgments align with people from different mathematical backgrounds.