Twenty-five Fields Medal winners warn that the goals of the AI industry and those of mathematics are "severely misaligned." Mass-producing solved problems with AI could undermine the discipline's real purpose: understanding.
In a joint statement, 25 winners of the Fields Medal, the highest honor in mathematics, warn about AI's impact on their field. Large language models have gotten so good at math in recent months that they can now crack "major outstanding problems in many fields of mathematics." That's exactly what worries them.
AI companies are treating math problems as benchmarks to conquer, and it's hurting the science and the surrounding community, the statement says. The goals of AI companies and those of mathematicians are "severely misaligned." Signatory Terence Tao had already warned about an AI-driven foundational crisis in mathematics.
Solving problems isn't the goal, it's the path to one
Famous unsolved problems "have often served as landmarks and lighthouses against which one can measure an improved understanding of this landscape," the statement says. When someone cracks one, the solution matters less than the new thinking it took to get there. Mathematicians then spend years pulling that thinking apart in a "long and arduous process of talks, discussions, simplifications."
