25 Fields Medal Winners Warn of Serious Misalignment Between AI and Mathematics

On September 11 local time, 25 Fields Medal winners including Terence Tao, Deng Yu, and Peter Scholze jointly released a statement titled 'A Severe Misalignment of AI in Mathematics,' warning of a serious misalignment emerging between AI companies and the mathematics community.

The statement notes that large language models have significantly improved their math abilities in recent months, solving many major open problems. However, AI companies pushing math problems as benchmarks is harmful to mathematical science and the math community. These solutions are often rushed out without time for formal writing or citing related work, raising serious attribution and plagiarism issues.

The statement emphasizes that solving problems is just a tool for achieving conceptual understanding and insight. AI-generated ideas can never be fully realized without mathematicians willing to take responsibility, and the critical human chain of transmission between mathematicians will be lost.

Fields Medal winner Deng Yu said the math community is filled with a restless atmosphere. He believes AI will not reach the point of solving all math problems. The statement calls on the math community, AI companies, and broader society to urgently address this alignment problem.