Why I agreed to join AGMAI

Martin Hairer Professor of Pure Mathematics at EPFL and Imperial College London

There has been a lot of speculation regarding the “Advisory Group on Mathematics and Artifical Intelligence” agmai.org since it was announced on Monday. In this short blog post, I would like to explain in a bit more detail how the group works, what we are trying to achieve, and why I agreed to be part of this group.

First of all, let me lay down some facts that seem to have been drowned in a torrent of misinformation. The most important one is that we are genuinely independent of OpenAI and any other of the so-called ‘frontier’ AI labs. Yes, the original impetus of forming this group was OpenAI’s response to the statement A Severe Misalignment of AI in Mathematics, but not all members of the group were contacted by OpenAI in the first place, there is nobody besides the nine of us taking part in our conversations, we do not receive any monetary compensation, and our technical support (so far mainly regarding IT, legal, and communications) is being provided by the IAS. We also have not signed any documents placing any constraints whatsoever on what we state in public and whose advice we seek, besides the obvious confidentiality requirements. The other fundamental fact is that our overarching aim is to represent as well as we possibly can the interests of the mathematical community. This is a tall order and we may end up doing a terrible job at it (I certainly hope not!), but I am absolutely certain that all nine of us take this extremely seriously and are acting in good faith.

I am acutely aware of many of the pitfalls of being part of such a group. At a most basic level, the mathematics community consists of people with a very broad range of views and opinions (often strongly held ones!), and the nine of us clearly don’t form a representative sample. As an independent body our role is purely advisory, so the AI labs can choose to simply ignore it. It would also be very naïve to believe that the AI labs won’t try to spin whatever we say in a way that suits their PR machine, which dwarfs anything we could possibly come up with. Finally, given that the unprecedented situation we find ourselves in has the potential of impacting the lives of so many people¹, whatever statement we make and / or advice we give will necessarily upset a sizable fraction of the maths community. So why on earth would I accept to be part of this?

Here are some of the reasons that swayed my mind:

1. The recent releases, on privately controlled websites, of high-profile mathematical results combined with abject levels of scholarship and only minimal presentation effort has been undermining the usual standards of scientific practice. If we refuse to answer when being asked how to do better (irrespective of whether that ask is being done in good faith), how could we then complain about this behaviour?
2. It is obvious that AI has already had a profound impact on mathematical research and raises numerous questions of correct attribution of ideas, priority, human understanding of ideas, etc. Many aspects of this revolution will be addressed within our community, but it makes no sense of taking a hard ‘ostrich’ approach of simply ignoring the AI labs and refusing to talk to them on principle.
3. It is perfectly legitimate to question OpenAI’s motivations, but the fact is that they have now made an effort (as belated and minimal as it is) to engage with the mathematical community. Turning them down without even trying to engage with them would be the easiest way for them to get a PR win painting the mathematical community as a bunch of out of touch luddites.
4. In the ‘Severe Misalignment’ statement, which has now been endorsed by nearly 8000 mathematicians, we conclude by saying that “These issues must be addressed urgently, in the mathematical community, by the companies developing these technologies, [$\ldots$]”. It would be rather hypocritical of myself to then chicken out at the first opportunity of actually having a chance of setting up some form of communications channel between the mathematical community and the AI labs just because I could get some flack for it.

Regarding the actual advice we intend to provide, it is a fact that AI companies have in recent months been producing some high profile mathematical results and that their publication and dissemination has been falling far short of acceptable mathematical practice, whichever way that is defined. However, the situation at hand is sufficiently unprecedented that we genuinely haven’t completely made up our minds yet on the best way forward and we fully intend to gather as much feedback as possible, be it through our feedback form, discussions with colleagues, the discussions on this blog, etc. We are going through a period of intense turmoil (and this doesn’t just concern mathematics) but I am heartened by the many intense but thoughtful and respectful discussions I have experienced both inside my own institution and at gatherings of mathematicians like the ICM over the past few months. I am convinced that the mathematical community can emerge all the more united and stronger from this experience.

1. I intentionally do not use the word ‘career’ since for many of us mathematics is so much more than just a career. ↩︎

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Received 22 September 2026.