Open Letter to Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society

Forty-two mathematician Fellows of the Royal Society have signed an open letter to the society's president, Sir Paul Nurse, warning that AI development poses an emergency and calling on the Royal Society to convey that view to government and the media. The signatories, who state they have no significant involvement with AI companies, cite leading OpenAI and Anthropic models advancing in three months from roughly the level of a strong student to solving multiple open research questions, including one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems, and say former AI company employees estimate the probability of human extinction at as high as 10 per cent over the next decade. The letter argues that by the time the situation becomes obvious to the wider public it may be too late to act, and invites other mathematicians to add their names.

The rapid development of AI is of enormous public interest right now, with the possible existential risk to humanity being reported by mainstream news organisations. However, the discussion is often tempered with questions such as ‘haven’t we heard this before?’ or ‘isn’t this just hype from the AI companies or a desire to protect their interests?’. As discussed widely in this blog and elsewhere, we as mathematicians perhaps more than other scientists have a particularly close up view of the speed of development and many of us have concluded that we ought to be very worried. We should make this point loudly. 42 mathematician Fellows of the Royal Society https://royalsociety.org/ have today written to the president of the society, Sir Paul Nurse, to put forward this view. Mathematicians of all types are invited to support the letter, their names are displayed here https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2Fdocument%2Fd%2F1N6ThWhupvmH0ofSnaxqnLEMfSTQX5cTLyTMYG27ID-w%2Fedit&data=05%7C02%7Cff373%40cam.ac.uk%7C672de185239442068e8708df13f7fe4b%7C49a50445bdfa4b79ade3547b4f3986e9%7C1%7C0%7C639251628704572453%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C80000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=jyvRn2LT1yxCb1%2FnhuFDgZX2CU%2BPJmcBIO2j3HCZyxY%3D&reserved=0 . If you want to add your name, complete this form https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2Fforms%2Fu%2F0%2Fd%2Fe%2F1FAIpQLSdua7W-CG7HoIHfqTNv4djbp78j0YeDHGCDr6WTCMCeFjhPEQ%2FformResponse&data=05%7C02%7Cff373%40cam.ac.uk%7C672de185239442068e8708df13f7fe4b%7C49a50445bdfa4b79ade3547b4f3986e9%7C1%7C0%7C639251628704594208%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C80000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=0YEBV9E2SfsP5QdXxdf2fG%2Fr4eqWNLLKfTAiPG8FQf0%3D&reserved=0 . The letter is reproduced below. Dear Paul, We, as mathematicians, write to express our extreme concern about the pace of development of AI and the implications of this for humanity and civilisation. None of us have any significant involvement with AI companies. 1 fn-7737d3eb-2355-4bb1-b20a-c7de69a448a6 In the last three months we have seen the leading models of OpenAI and Anthropic develop from around the level of a strong student to having solved multiple open questions at the forefront of research, including one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems. These models are now operating<sup 2 fn-e8315881-0bc7-47fb-a112-8512a942cd05 </sup at the level of the top human mathematicians in many parts of the subject and we must assume there is a significant chance of them developing superhuman abilities within a similarly short timeframe. This has profound implications for mathematics, but highlighting that is not the purpose of our letter. It is highly likely that these systems are comparably strong in other technical domains such as for example cybersecurity, autonomous weapon control, development of biological and chemical agents and the targeted spread of misinformation. Moreover, we must assume that the rate of change of their capabilities will be similarly rapid in these areas. We have all seen the concerns raised by former employees of the large AI companies, estimating the probability of human extinction to be as high as 10 per cent over the next decade. Our witnessing of the rise in capabilities of these models in our domain of expertise persuades us that such statements must not be dismissed as ‘hype’. By the time the situation becomes obvious to the wider public, it may be too late to act. We believe this is an emergency, and call on the Royal Society to use its influence to convey this view to government and the media. 1. Most of us use AI tools and many of us have been provided access to the leading publicly available models for free. Some of us have informal and unpaid connections with mathematicians working at AI companies, resulting in early access to and subsequent free use of some of their models. ↩︎ fn-7737d3eb-2355-4bb1-b20a-c7de69a448a6-link 2. Whilst it is true that the leading AI companies employ top mathematicians, and we cannot be sure of the exact methodology behind the solution of the Navier-Stokes Millennium Problem, our remarks apply to the outputs of the leading publicly-available models such as ChatGPT6-Astra ↩︎ fn-e8315881-0bc7-47fb-a112-8512a942cd05-link Signed by 42 Fellows and Foreign Members of the Royal Society: Luis Fernando Alday Martin Barlow Emmanuel Breuillard Tom Bridgeland Mark Chaplain Kevin Costello Ingrid Daubechies Marcus du Sautoy Toby Gee Mike Giles Alain Goriely Timothy Gowers Ben Green Geoffrey Grimmett Mark Gross Martin Hairer Roger Heath-Brown Dominic Joyce Frank Kelly Jens Marklof Vladimir Marković James Maynard James McKernan Jason Miller Robert Morris Jonathan Pila Jeremy Quastel Oscar Randal-Williams Mary Rees Richard Samworth Peter Sarnak Caroline Series Peter Scholze Gordon Slade Ivan Smith Endre Süli Richard Thomas Jack Thorne Ulrike Tillmann Burt Totaro Claire Voisin Wendelin Werner Received 16 September 2026.