Mathematician Terence Tao Warns AI Threatens Open Science

Renowned mathematician Terence Tao has raised concerns that the rapid deployment of artificial intelligence in research could dismantle the foundational traditions of open science. According to Tao, the global repository of fruitful open scientific and mathematical problems is currently being mined in a "non-renewable fashion." This aggressive exploitation threatens to make these foundational challenges increasingly scarce.

The primary driver of this shift is the sheer speed and scale of AI-powered research. Tao pointed out that even the mere rumor of a researcher targeting a specific problem can now spark a massive, automated effort to "flatten it" before the original human team can fully develop their project. This hyper-competitive environment leaves human academics with little room to nurture complex, long-term ideas.

Consequently, the incentives for researchers are shifting away from collaboration. To prevent their work from being preempted by automated systems, scientists may stop sharing promising research directions with the wider community. Tao warns that withholding this information would reverse centuries of open science traditions, inflicting severe, long-term damage on the future of scientific discovery.

For AI practitioners and developers, this warning highlights a looming feedback loop. AI models rely heavily on the open publication of high-quality human research to learn and evolve. If the pressure of AI competition forces human researchers to keep their discoveries and methodologies secret, the pipeline of open, verified knowledge will contract, ultimately starving future AI systems of the very data they need to progress.