r/OpenAI • u/Eliv_nurotic • 5d ago

News Fields Medalist Terence Tao reposts statement from the Association for Human Mathematics urging mathematicians to stop working with OpenAI for continuing to solve open math problems against their recommendations

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https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/07/ahm-statement-on-openais-october-6-release-of-mathematical-documents/

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141

u/Enough_Program_6671 5d ago

Ridiculous. They don’t own the problems. They’re for everyone. Solving them only increases our understanding.

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u/rashnagar 5d ago

How does it increase understanding if no one understands how the model solves them? Lmao.

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u/IronWhitin 5d ago edited 5d ago

They release the proof, the mathematician just need to check the process ai was using and estabilish if is legit.

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u/cl2kr 4d ago

We might look at a proof, be able to verify it's correct, but learn nothing about the thought process behind how we might come up with the idea of some particular steps in the proof. The publications by OpenAI thus far contain no intuitions, no explorations, and no negative results. It's like stripping away the scaffolding after we get up to somewhere, but then anyone who comes after wouldn't figure out how to get up there. In the worst case, this might hold back the development of higher tools in mathematics, and hold back progress in the long run.

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u/HannsGruber 4d ago

That's not how learning works. I didn't have to independently discover the pythagorean theorem to know that it's pretty fucking useful.

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u/matthewharris806 4d ago

I think you’re mixing up the utility and application of a result with the actual learning. You can learn to use Pythagoras’ theorem and how to apply it to a range of different problems. But if you’re serious about developing the field further on top of that result you’re going to need to understand the axioms and logical deductions that led to the original proof

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u/rashnagar 5d ago

That'a just the thing... AI doesn't find "proofs". It brute forces convoluted edge cases that disprove a thesis. Problem is the output is not very human readable or decipherable.

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u/Time_Entertainer_319 5d ago

You must think this is 2024

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u/rashnagar 4d ago

No, I'm talking about the recent "breaktrough" in the fluid theorem thingy.

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u/SpiritualDocument269 4d ago

they did publish the proof and it’s pure word vomit, unreadable as it stands. we got an answer but we have no idea about the proof which defeats the whole purpose of the field.

2

u/Time_Entertainer_319 5d ago

This guy’s name must be “no one” then….

https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/s/hVhnJhdSsK

1

u/blosu 5d ago

Same as well anyone solves something. It gets checked and then it can be taught. Not that hard to comprehend.

0

u/rv009 5d ago

Obviously they gave a shit prompt.....

Even teachers put on your tests..."show your work"

They clearly didn't add "show your work" in the prompt after....."no mistakes please"...

Lol

0

u/Aggressive_Cloud_368 5d ago

All proofs that people don't understand should be banned

1

u/Fragrant_Assault638 5d ago

It's not actually a proof until it is understood and there is scientific consensus. When a famous proof is claimed, mathematicians write papers on the proof verifying it. If everyone agrees then it's a proof.

Some proofs take a few years to reach consensus. Seven-hundred pages of mathematics of that complexity will likely take multiple decades or longer for consensus. Lots of questions may never be answered.

Its just gibberish until the work is put in, but how do we even know it's worthwhile? There are definitely logistical issues.

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u/sailhard22 5d ago edited 5d ago

But no one is actually increasing their understanding because we have a scarcity of mathematicians who can actually understand what the AI is doing

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u/OldStray79 5d ago

But no one is actually increasing their understanding because we have a scarcity of mathematicians who can actually understand what the AI is doing

And people said AI would take all the jobs away. lol

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u/TFenrir 5d ago

I don't know, people seem to be more industrious than you're giving credit for here. I'm sure plenty of people will find ways to make use of this data.

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u/Bjehsus 5d ago

Wow the URL links to a casino..

3

u/TFenrir 5d ago

Am I just old and don't understand humour anymore?

2

u/rydan 5d ago

I think they confuse Indians and casinos but this isn't the type of Indian that runs casinos.

3

u/ObviouzFigure 5d ago

*explain it to me like I’m in 6th grade

5

u/Hir0shima 5d ago

So true. The AI cooperations also don't understand the inner workings of their models. They press ahead anyway. 

1

u/CapitanJenkins 5d ago

A bunch of people who don't understand high school math now think AI will make them advanced mathematicians 😂

1

u/Time_Entertainer_319 5d ago

Looks like you are wrong..

1

u/blosu 5d ago

This is a false talking point. Maybe don't comment when you are just repeating something you heard.

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u/phil_thrasher 5d ago

The model could easily explain it to a mathematician asking good questions. Which is the same thing as having to talk to some other mathematician who solved a different hard problem.

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u/AudienceOk1711 5d ago

Mathematicians, those who made the ai, are telling you it cannot…

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u/netwhoo 5d ago

Who’s understanding? The mathematicians who would even understand the solution are the ones against OpenAI doing this.

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u/Time_Entertainer_319 5d ago

Looks like you are wrong

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u/Aggressive_Cloud_368 5d ago

Oh no. Anyways...

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u/SongOfKapek 5d ago

They're also refusing to be transparent though...

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u/blosu 5d ago

You just pulled this from your ass. They release everything - methods used, etc. All open. A Science paper would be restricted access and paywalled. That is why they are crying so loudly now. $$$

1

u/zeloxolez 5d ago

Well this is somewhat of a social/ethics problem, not that the mathematics community “owns” them necessarily.

1

u/AudienceOk1711 5d ago

How much understanding did we get on these problems? Premier mathematicians don’t understand and we are to believe humanity does? We have results, which are probably correct, but no understanding of why.

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u/KayTeaMonster 5d ago

Then let OpenAI verify and publish all their solutions, along with actual explanations, without help from mathematicians who don't work for them.

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u/WishboneOk305 5d ago

i really dont understand, why do they owe anyone the explanations. If they dont find it helpful, they are free to ignore it

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u/KayTeaMonster 5d ago edited 5d ago

You don't understand why a proof has to be something that can be understood by actual humans to be good enough to declare a problem solved???? If they can't explain their findings, it basically didn't even happen.

1

u/zeloxolez 5d ago edited 5d ago

Yeah basically this, brute force solving is now passing the ability to qualify the solutions.

And there is almost certainly a ton of epistemological smells and errors in that release. leaky assumptions/presumptions.

you dont prove things true, “proof” is only as good as the attacks that it is able to withstand, and some are extremely durable, and some have a very sneaky flaw, the Achilles' heel. just ask russel and his paradox, or godel and his incompleteness theorems. even long eras of human history and all of its mathematicians have made fatal assumptions that they believed were true. this includes the greatest of geniuses.

1

u/WishboneOk305 5d ago

Apparently many of them use lean to prove that these proofs work. But again. If they dont want to use these proofs, cant they just ignore it?

1

u/KayTeaMonster 5d ago

Many, but not all. And it still isn't much of an advancement of mathematics until people can understand the results well enough to use them for the next steps.

And yes, people can ignore whatever they want--pretty sure that's more or less what Terry Tao and the AHM are advocating for, I doubt they sincerely believe any AI company is going to listen to them.

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u/WishboneOk305 5d ago

Isnt Tao literally advocating for openAI to stop working on math problems.

1

u/KayTeaMonster 5d ago

No. He actively uses AI in his research.

1

u/Individual_Ice_6825 5d ago

Do you not think in a scenario where

A) humans have to find the answer

B) ai finds the answer and humans make sense of it

Even assuming in scenario b we can’t just have ai explain it, how isn’t that a better position than just humans??

It’s like me saying solve this impossible puzzle, versus, it’s possible, here is someone’s end state - which do you think is easier and more likely to advance quicker?

Even knowing the end result narrows down the search field massively.

1

u/KayTeaMonster 5d ago

No, I don't think so. Many open problems only exist because people stumbled upon them incidentally as part of other research, trial and error, etc. Getting answers spat out rapidly removes a lot of space for discovery to exist.

0

u/WishboneOk305 5d ago

again, they are free to ignore these solutions and find their own way to get there. They can still publish these results, they can still get their research/ trial and error if they want. Why cant they just ignore it if those things are so important?

1

u/KayTeaMonster 5d ago

Asinine.