After LLM counterexamples to major conjectures, a mathematician's spiritual crisis
Dr_Atoosa · x · 2026-08-24
LLMs have recently produced counterexamples to several significant long-standing conjectures, shaking the math community. In a long essay, "The Dark Night of Mathematics", Kirwin Hampshire describes a profound spiritual crisis: he calls the Leiden Declaration on AI and Mathematics "a well-muffled scream" that avoids the real problem.
The missing piece: the common consolation that "mathematicians can still do math for fun" doesn't hold — under the current system, nobody pays mathematicians to write old-fashioned proofs for pleasure, so the profession's economic and meaning foundations are crumbling.
Bonus: "Leiden" means "suffering" in German, an apt coincidence the poster highlights.
Related event: Mathematicians in Crisis as LLMs Crack Long-Standing Conjectures(3 posts)→
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