Did OpenAI solve the wrong Navier-Stokes problem?

Two weeks ago OpenAI claimed a solution to one of the biggest open problems in math—the Navier-Stokes problem—an achievement worth a $1-million prize from the Clay Mathematics Institute. The proof ignited a powder keg of concern over artificial intelligence companies’ race to disrupt the subject.

But with the dust still far from settled, a different controversy is emerging: Did OpenAI even solve the right Navier-Stokes problem?

Generated by an internal large language model (LLM), OpenAI’s proof relies on an approach that many experts find unnatural. It solves a variant of the problem that mathematicians say is disconnected from reality and thus less interesting. In a sense, the LLM found and exploited a loophole in the framing of the question.

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“The most important problem is unsolved,” says Luis Silvestre, a mathematician at the University of Chicago. “The Clay problem is settled, but the main problem for the Navier-Stokes equations is not.”