25 Fields Medal winners decry AI incursion into mathematics

September 14, 2026 at 08:00 PM1 min

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Twenty-five winners of the Fields Medal, mathematics' highest prize, signed a declaration released last Friday decrying a "severe misalignment" between AI companies' goals and those of the discipline. The statement came a week after OpenAI claimed a solution to the Navier-Stokes equations, one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems. Signatories include Terence Tao, who has recently shifted from optimism to concern about AI's role in mathematics.

Key Facts

The declaration was signed by 25 Fields Medal winners and released last Friday.
OpenAI claimed a solution to the Navier-Stokes equations last Tuesday, one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems.
Terence Tao, a signatory, said on his blog last Wednesday that the situation "has deteriorated markedly."
Last week a group of mathematicians launched the Association for Human Mathematics (AHM).

The Declaration

The statement decries a "severe misalignment" between AI companies' goals and those of mathematics. It argues that the goal of mathematics is not only to solve problems but to advance "conceptual understanding and insight" of human practitioners. The declaration says this human culture is endangered by the "mass production" of AI-generated proofs. It describes the mathematical community as "a miniature version of humanity" joined by core values.

Signatories and Reactions

Terence Tao, a Fields Medal winner, signed the declaration after years of public optimism about AI in mathematics. Tao appeared in a promotional video from OpenAI a few months ago but wrote on his blog last Wednesday that the situation "has deteriorated markedly." He described a landscape where companies are "increasingly focused on the race to develop extremely powerful, autonomous AI technologies regardless of their actual value to society." Last week a number of concerned mathematicians launched the Association for Human Mathematics (AHM).