Mathematicians spent 40 years telling taxpayers that math matters because it benefits humanity. Now that AI is doing the math, suddenly it's about mathematicians.
A commentary highlighting the perceived hypocrisy of mathematicians who spent decades justifying taxpayer funding on societal benefit grounds, but now decry AI solving famous open problems as harmful to the field and its community.
For decades, the case for funding math research was simple: it pays off for you, society, and everyone. 1984, the US "David Report" (the landmark math funding report): "the high technology so celebrated today is essentially a mathematical technology." Federal math research funding rose 34%. 1992, International Mathematical Union (IMU): one of its official aims was "Mathematics, keys for Development." 1997, NSF: "broader impacts," meaning benefit to society, became a required criterion for every grant proposal. 2012, UK: a Deloitte study commissioned by the research council credited math research with about 16% of UK economic output and 2.8M jobs. 2018, UK Bond Review: math is "arguably the single most pervasive and powerful engine of innovation." A £300M government pledge followed in 2020. 2021, IMU/UNESCO: the International Day of Mathematics theme was "Mathematics for a Better World." The reversal (2026) AI starts knocking off famous open problems one by one... The math communities response: Leiden Declaration, endorsed by the IMU, the same "Mathematics for a Better World" people: AI threatens math's core values, and hits students and early-career mathematicians hardest. 25 Fields Medalists: solving problems is "only a tool and proxy for achieving the primary goal of conceptual understanding." Association for Human Mathematics, Oct 8: tells mathematicians to stop working with OpenAI. "Mathematicians did not ask for this work to be done." My favorite example In 2012, Fields Medalist Cédric Villani wrote that "most of our research is paid for by the taxpayer" (translated from French). If citizens don't see how math advances society, he argued, there's no reason they'd keep funding it. In 2018 he wrote the report behind France's national AI strategy. In 2026 he signed the Fields letter saying the AI labs' race to solve math problems harms both the science and the mathematical community. The hypocrisy is oozing from the mathematicians who spent decades claiming societal benefits from math progressing, and raking in taxpayer grants and funding, and now all the sudden that good for society is not even mentioned.... Now math being solved is apparently harming society? Somehow? Dont quite know how that works....
The article discusses the backlash from mathematicians after OpenAI's model solved the Navier-Stokes problem, highlighting accusations of data theft and selfish concerns over AI's impact on scientific sharing.
Mathematicians like Tristan Buckmaster and Andreas Thom continue using AI tools from OpenAI and Anthropic despite grievances over intellectual property and ethical concerns, highlighting the tension between AI utility and academic integrity.
The article discusses the impact of AI on mathematics, referencing OpenAI's solution to a Navier-Stokes problem and community reactions, while proposing a human-centric axiom to preserve human expertise amidst AI advancement.
An opinion piece arguing that AI-discovered proofs of long-standing open math problems should be published promptly, and that mathematicians are not entitled to special protection from AI-driven discovery beyond proper verification and attribution. The author, a creative professional, contends technological displacement already hit creative fields and that slowing scientific progress for a profession's adjustment period is unjustified.