As A.I. Makes Strides in Mathematics, Mathematicians Urge Caution [View all]

Source: NYT

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On Tuesday, a group of 16 mathematicians, in consultation with colleagues and math organizations worldwide, published the Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics. It aims to “frame the conversation about future directions,” said Dame Ursula Martin, one of the authors, and a mathematician and computer scientist at Oxford.

This effort comes as A.I. models have been making headlines with successful results in research-level mathematics. In late May, OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, announced that one of its models had disproved a notable 80-year-old mathematics conjecture in the field of combinatorial geometry.

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Among the potential threats that the Leiden Declaration authors articulate are accuracy and reliability: Journal editors are already complaining about a flood of plausible seeming A.I.- generated papers and proofs that have turned out to be incorrect, and in ways that are difficult for mathematicians to discern.

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HARRIS I would add that a lot of the enthusiasm and excitement is artificially generated by the corporations. The declaration warns against that: “Don’t believe the hype.” It is important for the mathematical community to have the last word on what, mathematically, is, and what is not, exciting.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/science/ai-mathematics-leiden-declaration.html

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This declaration was a good idea. The AI companies have been overstating and hyping their AI models' alleged abilities. There have been a number of hypefests that got AI companies a world of free publicity before the reality of what the AI had - or hadn't - accomplished became known, whether it was the AI simply finding answers online or the hallucination level making the supposed advance much less useful. And there was a study showing that LLMs can come up with correct answers possibly by simple guessing or hallucinating, since their explanation of how they reached that answer didn't actually lead to it.

A very pro-AI account on both Bluesky and X posted about a "disturbing" Stanford paper on LLMs' failures at reasoning
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221009224



That sort of thing is why it caught my attention when a Harvard mathematician mentioned in the NYT article pointed out a lack of related ideas.

Another of the mathematicians pointed out that OpenAI "got lucky with this one" and so far people being asked to praise this latest hyped AI accomplishment "are not told about the model’s failures."

Would Sam Altman lie to get more attention for his company?

Sam Altman May Control Our Future--Can He Be Trusted? (Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker, 4/6)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221158209