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Responsible Release of AI-Generated Mathematics

123 points · 223 comments · aureianimus

  1. Chance-Device · · focus · HN ↗
    I think the answer to this is simple: Mathematicians don’t own math. Math is a tool to do useful things. I don’t want this gatekept by people who have a sense of entitlement. And luckily enough, they don’t have any leverage, so the appropriate response is to say no.
    1. hodgehog11 · · focus · HN ↗
      Math is not merely a tool. The question isn't one of doing the math, it's about publication and release of work. Humans have to follow certain rules, so why should we allow AI labs to behave differently?
      1. Chance-Device · · focus · HN ↗
        Anyone can publish what they want. There’s nothing else to say about it, however anyone may try to pretend otherwise.
        1. pegasus · · focus · HN ↗
          Really? What about plagiarism? Have you looked into the Navier-Stokes proof? It gets very murky.
          1. stevenhuang · · focus · HN ↗
            It's not that murky anymore. It's been determined none of the chat contents were used. If you don't believe OpenAI, that's your choice.

            See <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;openai.com&#x2F;index&#x2F;navier-stokes-solution&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;openai.com&#x2F;index&#x2F;navier-stokes-solution&#x2F;

            &gt; Following an investigation, we have confirmed that Buckmaster’s Codex prompts over the two months preceding this announcement and paper on September 8, 2026, could not have influenced the system in any way, including through training. The OpenAI internal model used for this result was developed through large-scale reinforcement learning on top of a previously pretrained model. Our proofs also differ significantly. In the Euler case, Alpöge and Buckmaster proved a result with external forcing, while OpenAI’s system proved a result without external forcing.

            1. pegasus · · focus · HN ↗
              &gt; If you don&#x27;t believe OpenAI, that&#x27;s your choice.

              ...and, I would add, it would be an informed choice, wouldn&#x27;t you agree?

              1. stevenhuang · · focus · HN ↗
                You don&#x27;t believe OpenAI given their assessment, so it seems you&#x27;re not operating on evidence in the first place
                1. pegasus · · focus · HN ↗
                  So you just take OpenAI at their word, no questions asked? You imagine them to be unbiased in this matter?
                  1. stevenhuang · · focus · HN ↗
                    At this point it takes some weird epistemics to think they&#x27;d need to outright fabricate the outcome of an investigation when countless other mathematical breakthroughs have been solved the same.

                    They are certainly biased, but I don&#x27;t think such bias is strong enough to cause them to lie about facts. We may agree to disagree here.

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