Twenty-five Fields medalists recently signed a letter titled "A Severe Misalignment of AI in Mathematics," arguing that the aims of AI companies and the mathematics community are fundamentally out of sync. They criticize AI firms for prioritizing rapid announcements of solutions without adequate documentation, isolation of new methods, or proper citation of prior work. However, the letter also acknowledges that the mathematics community itself has struggled to prioritize conceptual understanding and the careful nurturing of students and ideas.
The letter appears to have been prompted by OpenAI's announcement of a solution to the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem. The history of mathematics reveals numerous instances where promising mathematicians faced significant barriers. For example, Juliusz Schauder, a pioneer in the field, was denied academic positions due to antisemitism and was ultimately murdered during World War II. Olga Ladyzhenskaya, who made foundational contributions to partial differential equations and fluid mechanics, was overlooked for the Fields Medal in 1958 amid non-merit-based considerations. It took until 2014 for the first woman, Maryam Mirzakhani, to receive the Fields Medal.
More recent examples include Karen Uhlenbeck, the first woman awarded the Abel Prize in 2019, who faced gender discrimination throughout her early career, and Cathleen Morawetz, a leading mathematician in nonlinear PDE and fluid dynamics, who encountered dismissive attitudes toward women in mathematics.
The article highlights ongoing issues within the mathematics community, such as poor mentorship and sexism, citing experiences from the University of California, Berkeley's mathematics department. It also questions the emphasis on Fields medalists in the letter, suggesting that recognition does not necessarily equate to responsibility for the community's culture.
The authors argue that aligning AI development solely with the existing mathematics community is insufficient. Instead, both AI companies and mathematicians should focus on shared values like deep understanding, proper attribution, intellectual generosity, and the nurturing of students and ideas rather than just the production or recognition of results.