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Over 800 mathematicians signed the Leiden Declaration expressing deep concern about irresponsible AI use in mathematics and potential erosion of the discipline.
Where this was said
At 42:37 · chapter starts 40:20
Hartnett offers a memorable vignette from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton — described as 'the citadel of modern math.' In one afternoon, he encountered two top-tier mathematicians with completely opposite views. The first had just closed Gemini in frustration after it told him something demonstrably false. The second, superficially similar on paper, predicted that AI would put mathematicians out of business within 2 years because it would soon be strictly better than humans at all of it. Terence Tao — the greatest living mathematician and most important figure in the debate — sits squarely in the middle [1] — Kevin Hartnett "At the Institute for Advanced Study, Kevin Hartnett met two top mathematicians in one afternoon with polar opposite views — one dismissed A…" 40:18 . Tao's view, which Kevin Roose describes from a recent OpenAI video, is that AI is like an 'Iron Man suit' or a 'jetpack for thoughts': it allows mathematicians to test many more ideas quickly, radically lowering cognitive friction for exploratory work. Hartnett suspects the dismissive camp was in the majority a year ago but is shrinking rapidly.
Over 800 mathematicians signed the Leiden Declaration warning that AI is producing plausible but unreliable proofs, eroding human expertise, and steering mathematical priorities toward what AI is good at rather than what matters. Kevin Hartnett reads it as a field asserting: this is our discipline, and you don't get to tell us how it runs.
A large Harvard study found that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind — people report greater happiness when their attention is tethered to the present, even if the task is unpleasant.
A key study finding that we have a 'credit card's worth of plastic' in our bodies was likely skewed because researchers used nitrile gloves that shed plastic particles onto the microplastic detector.
Emotionally sensitive people have a hyperactive amygdala, an underactive prefrontal cortex, and a frayed connection between the two — making emotional regulation structurally harder.
Rejection sensitivity can be observed as early as age 2 or 3, suggesting it has strong developmental and likely genetic roots.
A Yale study found that non-judgmental observation of emotions — without rushing to resolve them — reduces activation in the brain, making it a powerful regulation tool.
Dan Gilbert's research found that the psychological immune system — the brain's ability to justify and find satisfaction in choices — activates most powerfully when a decision is perceived as irreversible.
Barry Schwartz's research found that maximizers — people who try to optimize every decision — tend to achieve objectively better outcomes but report lower happiness than satisficers who choose 'good enough.'
Research consistently shows that while people may initially regret poor decisions, in the long run they regret the decisions they didn't make — inaction — far more than the ones they took.
A study showed that men in committed relationships who briefly viewed 10 attractive women's faces reported a measurable decrease in relationship satisfaction immediately afterward, illustrating evolutionary mismatch with modern media.
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