Mathematicians Push Back on A.I

After reading this article I don’t look at mathematicians the same. There is a process of learning that they cherish. It is not only about solving problems it is about debating and collaborating, it is to think critically. Their published research has beed used to train these models without their consent and now the models are being monetiezed, commericialized and weaponized. Here is a summary:

Reporting from The New York Times, a coalition of 16 mathematicians published the Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics, a formal challenge to the way A.I. companies are framing their inroads into one of humanity's most rigorous disciplines � and a warning that unchecked corporate influence could quietly corrupt the field from within.

The declaration arrives one week after OpenAI announced that one of its models disproved an 80-year-old conjecture posed by Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdos � a result experts called genuinely impressive. But the authors of the declaration are less interested in the math than in what surrounds it: no disclosed methods, no published prompts, no transparency about training data or computational cost. The announcement landed the same day OpenAI filed IPO paperwork, a timing Leiden co-author Rodrigo Ochigame called "not a coincidence."

At its core, the declaration raises three concerns: accuracy (journal editors are already drowning in convincing but incorrect A.I.-generated proofs), credit (OpenAI's paper failed to properly cite prior related work, according to Harvard mathematician Melanie Matchett Wood), and incentive distortion (when corporations fund math research, problems get chosen for their A.I. benchmarking value, not their mathematical significance). Columbia's Michael Harris put it plainly � the industry is running a media campaign to control the narrative of what mathematics is for, and funding decisions follow headlines.

The declaration has been endorsed by the International Mathematical Union and will be presented at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Philadelphia this July. It is now open for signatures from individuals and national mathematical societies worldwide.

Read the full story at the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/science/ai-mathematics-leiden-declaration.html