A Modest Proposal

Peter Woit · 9 Sept 2026 · math.columbia.edu ↗

2 korrents from this piece

Peter Woit did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
AI agents are going to have major consequences for how mathematics research is done.

Their wordsThe new AI agents have profound implications for mathematics research and I think the math community needs to start discussing specific ways to deal with these.
Our reading
Mathematicians using AI agents to produce proofs should have to disclose in detail how the agents were used, the way experimental scientists must describe their methods.

Their wordsthe math community needs to adopt a version of the ethical standards of experimental science. If you are using AI agents, you can't just give a proof (formalized or not), but need to also provide a detailed explanation of how these agents were used to get the result.