Will it be a golden age or a dark age for mathematics (and science)?

[This is a guest post by Francesco Maggi. This blog post was initially written in a different file format and converted using AI. — T.] Large language models (LLMs) and the research systems built around them (and commonly known as “artificial intelligence”) have demonstrated remarkable abilities in generating mathematical proofs. While the quality and limits of these tools remain incompletely understood, their potential for accelerating discovery and enabling extraordinary advances in mathematics and, more broadly, across science and technology seems clear. Seizing on that potential will require the careful integration of LLMs into the various STEM ecosystems, with the priorities of empowering a new generation of scientists, developing new STEM expertise, and preserving an open, collaborative, and intellectually independent scientific enterprise: that is the “golden age” scenario in the title. In the “dark age” scenario, scientific and technological output would still increase spectacularly in the short term, but, at the same time, independent human scientific activity would progressively weaken, the production of new knowledge becoming increasingly concentrated in a small number of hands, who become increasingly incapable of understanding the knowledge produced. The real darkness here would be knowledge becoming alien to human understanding. Reality will likely combine these scenarios.…