Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics

This declaration calls for action to address the challenges posed by the use of artificial intelligence within mathematics research. It is the result of a community initiative and is endorsed by the International Mathematical Union (IMU).

Technological developments have repeatedly transformed the practice of mathematics. Recent artificial intelligence technologies, including symbolic and neural methods for the generation and formalization of mathematics, may already have initiated a significant chapter in this long history. Among researchers, artificial intelligence has produced a wide range of reactions: enthusiasm for its potential to yield new discoveries; intimidation by the pace of developments; indifference to these rapid changes; and concern for the implications, both for mathematics and in wider society.

Mathematicians have a choice about whether and how to adopt artificial intelligence in the conduct of their research. They also have a responsibility to ensure the continued flourishing of the discipline. This Declaration calls upon mathematicians to exercise this responsibility, and provides recommendations for individuals, institutions, government, and industry.

Although we adopt the perspective of mathematical research, much of what we write applies equally to other aspects of mathematics. This includes work in the broader mathematical sciences, education, mentoring, publishing, funding, science policy, and use of mathematics in the wider world.

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https://leidendeclaration.ai/

The declaration warns that reliance on AI-generated proofs threatens the accuracy, reliability and independent verifiability of mathematical research, and that the growing involvement of AI companies risks skewing research priorities toward problems amenable to AI methods while disadvantaging researchers without access to them. It calls on mathematicians, professional organizations and policymakers to disclose the use of AI, uphold peer review, and protect the openness and values of the discipline.

The declaration was written by 16 mathematicians, including Jim Portegies (Eindhoven), who led the project, Mateja Jamnik (Cambridge), Ursula Martin (Oxford), Rodrigo Ochigame (Leiden), and Michael Harris (Columbia).

The declaration expresses concerns about risks to the accuracy and reliability of mathematical papers raised by reliance on AI-generated proofs. It says: "Technology companies' involvement in research raises the risk that research questions are prioritized and incentivized because of their amenability to AI methods and models, rather than their deeper significance to understanding." Researchers without access to AI methods are put at a disadvantage.

The declaration says that "models trained on published works frequently return outputs that do not properly cite the human works they synthesize" and that these models' training data has been gathered by "exploiting licenses and access arrangements" or "simply violating copyright protections."

Corporate press releases about mathematical discoveries by AI are described as being on "market timelines before the accepted processes of community evaluation in mathematics can take place."

The declaration recommends disclosing the use of AI in research papers, ensuring that AI-assisted papers are peer-reviewed, and providing legal resources and public funding so that academia and for-profit companies can compete on equal terms.

Contributors describe the purpose of the declaration as to stimulate debate and help mathematicians articulate the values of their profession. Michael Harris said: "The purpose, from my perspective, is to recover control of the narrative about the values and the goals of mathematics from the A.I. industry." He describes mathematicians' values as being "openness, honesty, giving credit where credit is due, sharing, transparency about methodologies, and access for independent verification of results." Writing in the Communications of the ACM, co-author Mateja Jamnik described the declaration as a call on the "mathematical community to make its values explicit at a time when AI systems are increasingly becoming part of mathematical research".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leiden_Declaration_on_Artificial_Intelligence_and_Mathematics

Thoughts about the Leiden Declaration

(By Timothy Gowers)

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One of the concrete outcomes of the workshop was the Leiden Declaration, which has now been signed by over 3000 people. Given that I was part of the workshop, it might seem a bit strange that I am not one of the signatories of the resulting declaration. The reason is not so much that I disagree with it in any concrete way, but more that in several places it makes confident assertions and recommendations that I feel somewhat uncertain about. So instead I prefer to try to articulate my views about the issues raised by the declaration and put them in this blog post. Before I do that, I would like to make clear that I am very glad that the Leiden Declaration exists and I think that it has done a lot of good in focusing people’s minds on the issues that AI is forcing the mathematical community to grapple with, which are more acute now than they were last September.

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https://gowers.wordpress.com/2026/07/26/thoughts-about-the-leiden-declaration/