The Leiden Declaration and Severe Misalignment: World-Leading Mathematicians Demand Transparency and Human Understanding in AI-Driven Science

Sun Oct. 18, 2026 /Mpelembe Media/ —  The integration of artificial intelligence into mathematics and the broader scientific enterprise presents a stark dual horizon between an unprecedented golden age of discovery and an epistemic dark age. In the golden age scenario, AI functions as a transparent research co-author—an instance of “artificial general cleverness”—that automates routine formalization, checks calculations, and explores vast search spaces, thereby liberating human minds to focus on high-level intuition, conceptual synthesis, and creative theory-building. Conversely, the dark age scenario warns of “knowledge collapse” and alienation, where proprietary, black-box AI models inundate academic literature with uninterpretable, machine-generated proofs and statements. This unchecked influx threatens to sever the human pedagogical transmission chain between generations of scholars and concentrate critical scientific infrastructure within a small group of private technology monopolies. Continue reading →