Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics

Post by briandw » Wed, Jun 10, 2026, 4:13 AM UTC

dwaltrip wrote: post #42

briandw wrote: post #28

Most of the arguments here feel like gate keeping and resistance to change. I didn't see any arguments that were directly about advancing the state of knowledge of math. “Current automated techniques can produce plausible but unreliable (or even incorrect) arguments which are difficult to distinguish from correct mathematical proofs.” That seems like a problem for mathematics with or without AI. Isn’t this a problem…

You aren’t really engaging with the substance or heart of the post, and your reading feels a bit knee-jerky and bad-faith to me.

So what was the substance that I missed?

Post by briandw » Wed, Jun 10, 2026, 4:26 AM UTC

onetimeusename wrote: post #83

magimas wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I don't think this "effort for effort's sake" is a very convincing argument. In particular, I think it's very much affected by recency bias in a way? What we perceive as "effort worth taking" instead of "dull occupational therapy" is very prone to change with technology. If you would argue that modern photographers need to take the time to physically develop their photos and use chemicals to get their e…

I'm not arguing that people should do things as hard of a way as possible, I think that's kind of a straw man. I am not saying we should tie stones around us, write things in Latin, and not use computers or something like that. Math is not really about just piling up results in my opinion. Most people's day to day lives were not directly changed by the recent Erdős problem that was solved by AI. I think most people b…

I'll do my best to restate the problem. If AI does all the work, then we won't have people who can understand the math that AI's are creating.

This is the real problem as I see it and it extends to most technical work. I didn't see that as the main argument of the article.

I was objecting to the old guard defending their turf.

Academia needs to contend with this problem, and start addressing it right now. People are not going to be able to beat AIs at math. So whats the solution? PhDs will have to be able to show competence in new ways. Publishing and review of mathematical work will have to change. The genie is out of the bottle and there is no putting it back.

Re: Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics

Re: Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics