Lior Pachter rebuts 25 Fields medalists: math community is misaligned too
math_rachel · x · 2026-09-13
- 25 Fields medalists signed "A Severe Misalignment of AI in Mathematics," claiming AI company goals are severely misaligned with the math community's, triggered by OpenAI's announced Navier-Stokes solution
- Lior Pachter agrees AI firms rush announcements without proper writeups, citations, or method isolation — and notes the signatories themselves rushed their letter citing no time for consultation
- But he argues the math community is equally misaligned from "conceptual understanding and insight": students and ideas have not been nurtured with care
- He cites historical cases (e.g. Juliusz Schauder, done wrong by antisemitic mathematicians) tied to the Navier-Stokes area
- Conclusion: AI should be aligned "to something else," not to the existing mathematics community
- Shared by Rachel Thomas
Related event: Pachter declines Fields medalists' AI letter, citing math's own failures(2 posts)→
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