25 Fields Medalists Warn of Severe Misalignment in AI-Driven Mathematics
Twenty-five Fields Medalists, including Terence Tao and Peter Scholze, co-signed a joint statement titled "A Severe Misalignment of AI in Mathematics." The open letter warns that AI tech companies are reducing mathematical research to mere LLM benchmarks, prioritizing rapid problem-solving over genuine conceptual understanding and established academic practices. The open letter highlights a fundamental clash between corporate AI race metrics and the core ethics of scientific inquiry. If AI tools flood the discipline with unvetted solutions that lack proper attribution or pedagogical depth, it risks undermining human collaboration, peer review, and long-term scientific progress. The signatories point out that rushed AI mathematical outputs often bypass formal writing, peer validation, and attribution, creating plagiarism risks and severing human knowledge transfer. Additionally, mathematician Yu Deng addressed his viral comment about retiring to write novels, clarifying it was a lighthearted joke and stating he does not believe AI will solve all mathematical problems.
## BACKGROUND
AI alignment refers to the challenge of ensuring AI systems behave according to human goals, values, and ethical standards. In recent years, AI companies have used advanced mathematics competitions and academic test sets as standard benchmarks to evaluate and market the reasoning powers of Large Language Models (LLMs).