Mathematicians React With Fury as OpenAI Releases Hundreds of New AI-Generated Proofs

It’s safe to say that when it comes to mathematicians, OpenAI isn’t exactly winning hearts and minds.

On Tuesday, the ChatGPT maker released hundreds of new papers with purported proofs for all sorts of mathematical problems — fresh off of explosive controversy over how its AI agents arrived at a solution to the Navier-Stokes equations.

The handling of the release, as with the Navier-Stokes, has grated experts in the field, who bristle at the company’s models potentially using their work — and at the implied expectation that they should do the hard labor unpacking and verifying the AI model’s sometimes nearly incomprehensible proofs.

A group called the Association for Human Mathematics released a statement blasting OpenAI’s release, which was then reshared, and effectively endorsed, by the Fields Medal-winning mathematician Terence Tau, a major figure in the community.

“Mathematicians have a particular vision of progress that is informed by history and field-specific considerations,” the statement began. “We reject OpenAI’s assertion that this release advances our subject, and we urge mathematicians and the public to view the value of this publication model with due skepticism.”

“Releasing over 700 files at once is not a demonstration of scholarship,” it added, “but a demonstration of power.”