Policy & Drama

OpenAI’s feud with mathematicians is only escalating

Twenty-five leading mathematicians signed an open letter arguing that AI labs are threatening their intellectual work.

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Twenty-five mathematicians who have won the Fields Medal, the most prestigious prize in mathematics, signed an open letter expressing concern that AI labs are threatening intellectual work by racing to solve famous math problems without proper attribution or verification. A specific incident involved an accusation that one company pressured a university professor not to credit a collaborator from a competing AI lab for solving an important math problem. The mathematicians argue that while AI solving outstanding mathematical challenges could benefit humanity, solutions announced hastily without proper writeups, verification, or citations of previous work raise serious questions about plagiarism and attribution, and that the culture of open research is threatened when frontier labs can spend millions to beat original researchers to proofs, which will incentivize secrecy. The signatories note that the value of mathematics extends beyond just proofs and credit to include the intellectual framework that educates students, generates new ideas, and integrates them into human civilization.

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