ICARM endorses the Leiden Declaration
We endorse the Leiden Declaration as an important first step in helping the mathematics community grapple with the use of AI.
The Institute for Computer-Aided Reasoning in Mathematics, one of seven NSF Mathematical Sciences Research Institutes in the United States, endorses the Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics.
The advent of AI raises serious concerns for mathematics and for society as a whole. In addition to the economic, environmental, social, cultural, and political effects, we should worry about ceding important aspects of our reasoning and decision-making processes to systems whose behaviors and outputs we do not fully understand. At ICARM, we believe it is crucial to keep mathematics central to the way we use and deploy AI.
There are also grave concerns about how AI may alter mathematical practice, and what the profession will look like in the years ahead. These worries are especially acute for students and early-career researchers, who see their futures at risk.
The Leiden Declaration's recommendations are minimal. In and of themselves, they are not a sufficient response to the challenges we face. The Declaration is, rather, a framework that can help us start to think about the issues, supporting further discussion and debate. Every institution that cares about mathematics needs to craft policies and procedures to help ensure that AI is used in ways that benefits the profession and humankind. We owe it to the next generation of mathematicians to get this right, and the Leiden Declaration is only a first step.