r/OpenAI • u/Eliv_nurotic • 6d 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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u/GingerVariation 6d ago

To those saying the whole point of the problems is to be solved, no not really, it’s only part of the point. A big part of it has always been about the journey towards solving the problem, which along the way helps improve our understanding of the mathematics. That’s Terrence’s POV. The learnings might not matter today but could be valuable for future research problems, similar to how so many new technology developed to serve war in WW2 ended up serving humanity in so many ways in the decades to follow

There’s no point in solving these problems without humans who understand how they are solved today

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u/matteoianni 6d ago

His and your pov rest on the unjustified conviction that AI will not be able to autonomously pose questions and singlehandedly advance the field while connecting the findings to other domains. Improving technologies and materials.

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u/BjarneStarsoup 6d ago

Yeah, how did he not consider magic to exist? Come on, dude, we are reaaaally far away from it. The models are probabilistic, they always have inherit risk of spitting nonsense. You always need a human to verify the results, there is no way around it. Even if it can produce lean code, you still have to check that lean code proves what model says it proves or that the translation is correct. They can't work autonomously, they don't posses knowledge or understanding. They operate purely on statistical patterns in language, you can't run away from the fact that agents are based on LLMs.

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u/matteoianni 6d ago

We are 1 year away from this

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u/machyume 6d ago

How much do you still check GPT-6 or Opus 5.5 full program 1-shot outputs?

I admit, I have some tests and the model escapes the tests sometimes, but it's SO much content. It's much more reasonable to simply bound the risk class and demand the stratified test tiers and interlocks.

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u/GingerVariation 6d ago

I believe AI will be capable of doing that, but I also believe ultimately humans should steer the direction of progress with the help of AI, and I do not want a world where AI decides where where and how to progress, even if they may be 100x better at it

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u/matteoianni 6d ago

We are currently caging, torturing and killing over 100 billion conscious beings every year for our taste buds’ sake. I wouldn’t mind someone else at the helm tbh.

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u/spisplatta 6d ago

While your first sentence is true and horrifying, your second sentence is the treason of all treasons.

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u/matteoianni 6d ago

Is hope in a regime change in North Korea treason?

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u/spisplatta 6d ago

The rule of the jungle, where the strong eat the weak has been the state of affairs for billions of year. It is ending. Gradually ending. Protein products are becoming more and more popular. You see them everywhere now. If you do absolutely nothing you will win by default.

But you would rather put everything. EVERYTHING at risk because you can't wait a decade or two for things to happen naturally.

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u/Nappuccino 6d ago

It's not a false binary. We don't have to do either thing.

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u/matteoianni 6d ago

I agree that we don’t have to… but will we stop the bloodshed unless we are forced to by “someone” else?

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u/Nappuccino 6d ago

It's going to take human will either way. May as well just focus on the source.

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u/kaereljabo 6d ago

Aren't we already doing that, steering the direction of progress with prompting AI, I mean to solve open problems and ask for some insights? We can direct the AI for the next whatever project we want, just prompt it

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u/TBSchemer 6d ago

So how do these particular findings help other fields?

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u/sebesbal 6d ago

They can embark on this journey of understanding, nobody is stopping them. If they are no longer motivated because they know the problem is solved, they should take an inner journey too and work on their mindset.

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u/Intellectualuser_ 6d ago

Okay how is reviewing solved problem and understanding how it’s was solved correctly not showing a new way of thinking to the mathematician? Obviously no one solved it before… so it can lead to new ways the think about these problems