25 Fields Medalists including Tao warn AI companies' math benchmarks misaligned with mathematics
furongh · x · 2026-09-13
25 Fields Medalists—including Terence Tao, Peter Scholze, June Huh, Maryna Viazovska, Martin Hairer and Cédric Villani—signed a Sept. 11 declaration, "A Severe Misalignment of AI in Mathematics."
Key points:
- LLMs can now solve major open problems, but AI companies treating problem-solving as a benchmark is detrimental to mathematics and its community.
- Research mathematics is about understanding structures; famous problems serve as landmarks whose solutions spark community-wide study and eventually textbook-level insight.
- Solving more problems is not the same as advancing understanding—the goals of AI companies and mathematicians are severely misaligned, part of broader alignment issues affecting science, creative professions and society.
Related event: Fields Medalists Sign Open Letter Warning of AI Misalignment in Math(86 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- Jessica Taylor revives 2023 essay: non-superintelligent paperclip maximizers are normal — jessi_cata · 2026-09-13
- Chamath accuses Dario of wanting to kill open source under guise of 'slowing AI' — markjeffrey · 2026-09-13
- David Patterson Counters ASI Doom Argument: Intelligence Doesn't Desire Power — davidpattersonx · 2026-09-13
- Cambridge's David Krueger recommends Katja Grace podcast as AI extinction-risk primer — DavidSKrueger · 2026-09-13
- David Krueger recommends KatjaGrace podcast as intro to AI extinction risk — DavidSKrueger · 2026-09-13
- A Prediction Without Uncertainty Is Only Half a Prediction in AI for Science — bravo_abad · 2026-09-13