The Dark Night of Mathematics - by Kirwin Hampshire

What are we really doing?

The Dark Night of Mathematics What are we really doing? Kirwin Hampshire Jul 25, 2026 686 288 140 Share I am going insane. During the last week or so LLMs have produced a number of counterexamples to significant long-standing conjectures. I will not recount these happenings here, there are many places where you can find the details. Mathematicians, math enthusiasts, and curious laypeople are responding to these developments in ways that I believe obscure what is, for me, the true heart of the problem. I do not speak for everyone in the math community in my response. But I suspect I am not alon

related reading

• Mathematics in the Library of Babel - Daniel Littdaniellitt.com
• Work hard | What's newterrytao.wordpress.com
• Mathematicians in the Age of AI1footnote 11footnote 1I am grateful to Johan Commelin, Sidharth Hariharan, Bryna Kra, Emily Riehl, and Akshay Venkatesh for comments, corrections, and suggestions.arxiv.org
• Notes from the front - by Michael Harris - Silicon Reckonersiliconreckoner.substack.com
• Mathematical Beauty, Truth and Proof in the Age of AI | Quanta Magazinequantamagazine.org
• Thoughts about the Leiden Declaration | Gowers's Webloggowers.wordpress.com
• [2603.26524] Mathematical methods and human thought in the age of AIarxiv.org
• Inside the Secret Meeting Where Mathematicians Struggled to Outsmart AI | Scientific Americanscientificamerican.com
• Knowledge Collapse - Boston Reviewbostonreview.net
• A recent experience with ChatGPT 5.5 Pro | Gowers's Webloggowers.wordpress.com
• There’s more to mathematics than rigour and proofs | What's newterrytao.wordpress.com
• Mathematicians issue Leiden Declaration against AI misuse of their workthenextweb.com