The arXiv is full of papers now that include a section, usually either after the acknowledgments or at the end of the paper, entitled “AI disclosure”. I strongly object to this phrase and I think it is a tremendous mistake to use it. Let me tell you why.
The word “disclosure” often brings with it connotations of shame or conflict of interest. I have to disclose otherwise-shadowy information that could have an impact on how other people view my work, my connections, or my incentives. I disclose when I receive money from a company that made a product I am studying in an experiment. I disclose that I was once convicted of stealing and crushing chalk. (These are purely hypothetical; the author has never done a physical experiment with corporate products or been accused or convicted of chalk theft and destruction.) I have to disclose certain defects when I sell a house. A company has to disclose a data breach resulting in theft of my personal information. Disclosure is about revealing information that a person or other entity could or would rather keep secret for its own advantage, or that could bring shame on those making the disclosure.
When telling people that I like chocolate, or that drinking tea helped me wake up in the midst of jet lag, I would not say “I disclose that I enjoy 70% bars made from Madagascar beans” or “I disclose that I had tea this morning”. When I write a paper with a friend, I don’t “disclose” that we wrote it together; we are co-authors. When I get a good idea in a conversation with a colleague, I graciously acknowledge the assistance. It would indeed be shameful not to recognize this help or collaboration. If I were to publish a paper under my name that was entirely produced and written by someone else, that should bring shame and would deserve disclosure.
There is a history of human/machine collaboration in mathematics. Many people have openly used computers in a range of areas for decades. Doron Zeilberger and (his computer) Shalosh B Ekhad have been writing papers together for years. We are now discussing mathematics with and writing papers with AI. Why should we be ashamed of this? What is there to disclose? Perhaps for some people the perception that these tools have agency (they are more like dogs than hammers) lends a tinge of shame to using them. More concerning to me is that the disclosure-shame connection incentivizes early-career mathematicians to hide their use of AI, rather than be clear about how a team of humans and machines produced the work. This has complex implications for training, hiring, and career trajectories.
In many fields, a list of coauthors on a paper includes information about what each author contributed to the work. We have not generally done this in mathematics, but when I look at the “AI disclosure” statements, that is really what I see. I propose that, at the very least, we change the name to “AI contributions”. If an AI model made contributions significant enough that a human doing the same thing would be a coauthor, the model(s) should be listed as coauthors (with their contributions explained). If, on the other hand, the interactions with AI were of a sort that would only merit acknowledgment and not coauthorship were they human, we should simply acknowledge the AI the same way we would humans: in the Acknowledgments section of the paper (with a clear statement of the contributions).
To me, this is how we can build a healthy relationship with our new, increasingly powerful, tools. There is no shame in harnessing the collective knowledge of humanity to ask new questions and find new answers. Let’s embrace it and acknowledge how the teams engaging with mathematics are changing.
Received 25 September 2026.
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