25 Fields Medallists including Terence Tao declare severe misalignment of AI in mathematics
natolambert · x · 2026-09-12
Terence Tao announces he is among 25 initial signatories — all Fields Medallists — to an urgent declaration on AI in mathematics, released without a fuller consultative process due to urgency and covered by The Economist.
- Core claim: LLM math capability has surged to where they can solve major outstanding problems, but AI companies treating math problems as benchmarks is detrimental to both the science of mathematics and its community — the goals are "severely misaligned."
- The signatories see this as part of broader alignment issues affecting other scientific and creative professions, and society at large.
- The essay notes famous problems serve as lighthouses, and research mathematics builds generational understanding of structure that modern technology rests upon.
Retweeder natolambert (prominent RLHF researcher) agrees: AI labs harvest progress directly without nurturing scientific communities and intuition; math felt the transition first, other fields are next.
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