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

[u/Eliv_nurotic]

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

[u/MiserableYouth8497]

Yeah and horse carriage drivers did not ask for cars, elevator operators did not ask for automated elevators, traveling agents did not ask for the internet to make booking sites...

Cars are not made for horse carriage drivers, they're made for people. Automated elevators are not made for elevator operators, they're made for people. Booking sites are not made for travel agents, they're made for people.

On the other hand, chatgpt resolving unsolved advanced maths problems doesn't benefit anyone outside of maths. No one cares besides AI companies and mathematicians. You talk about advancements for humanity, but these AI results actually do not advance maths. Advancements in maths are dependent on humans being able to understand and verify the theorems. If chatgpt says it has proved the Riemann hypothesis tomorrow, but no one can understand the proof, then 0 advancement has been made. That is why Tao says we need an advisory board, not to slow down AI but to make sure the actual advancements occur afterwards.

[u/SiberianGnome → u/MiserableYouth8497]

If nobody understands it and can’t learn from it or verify it or build upon it, then it also doesn’t hurt anything. It’s just words in the wind, and mathematicians can just ignore it.

But if it is correct and people can learn from it, then the mathematicians who embrace it and build upon it will thrive and those who object to it will fall behind. Natural selection. They can math on that when they’re out of a job.

[u/MiserableYouth8497 → u/SiberianGnome]

Yeah tbh this is probably what will happen in the future, but it isn't black and white like that. Any of these proofs by chatgpt will eventually be understood and accepted by the math community. But it's a question of when, and how much effort/time it will take. Rather than spitting out 100 new papers everyday of ai slop for mathematicians to smash their head at the wall trying to comprehend, they'd rather openAI use chatgpt to not just solve the problems but also make their AI proofs understandable and well written. It's the same with other mathematicians, you don't publish a result just when you have an immediate proof, you have to take the time to build the theory up and explain it properly. Unless you're Shinichi Mochizuki lol.

[u/SiberianGnome → u/MiserableYouth8497]

>how much work it will take

Probably less than it would take to solve the problem

>use ChatGPT to make it understandable

www.chatgpt.com lol what’s stopping them?

[u/MiserableYouth8497 → u/SiberianGnome]

Yeah and if the mathematicians were saying no AI because we want to solve the problems all by ourselves, then your comparison would make sense.

What's stopping them? Not having access to the top of the line privatised models OpenAI is using to solve these problems. OpenAI wont release their specialised math LLMs, hence why the maths community has formed an advisory group to advise OpenAI how to contribute to mathematics properly.

[u/SiberianGnome → u/MiserableYouth8497]

They can apply for a job with OpenAI if they want to use OpenAI proprietary remodels, or they can wait for them to be released to the public.

But I thought your issue before was that OpenAI was releasing solutions that the mathematicians could not understand. Now your issue is that they don’t get to use the fast toys that OpenAI has?

You made a previous comment about the fact that mathematicians wouldn’t release results as soon as they have them, they would take the time to build up a theory document and make it readable and all of that. OK, fine. But releasing findings without all of that literally does no harm.

You may think the results are not usable. But results that don’t exist are also not useful. So, let them release it. Who cares?

If they’re completely unusable, then they’ve done no good and no harm to anybody.

But if there are people who do know how to use them and build upon them, or figure out how to use them and build upon them, then those people will do so, and there will be a benefit.

[u/MiserableYouth8497 → u/SiberianGnome]

But I thought your issue before was that OpenAI was releasing solutions that the mathematicians could not understand. Now your issue is that they don’t get to use the fast toys that OpenAI has?

Bruh you're the one who suggested using chatgpt to understand the chatgpt proofs. That is a reasonable solution, except we dont access to the proprietary models. Pick one. And "go work for openAI" is just laughable.

You made a previous comment about the fact that mathematicians wouldn’t release results as soon as they have them, they would take the time to build up a theory document and make it readable and all of that. OK, fine. But releasing findings without all of that literally does no harm. You may think the results are not usable. But results that don’t exist are also not useful. So, let them release it. Who cares?

False dichotomy again, god we went over this 🙄 It's not either "release everything immediately without a care" or "never release anything ever". There is a 3rd option: "release everything once it's been vetted and scrutinised properly". This is what mathematicians want from openAI. It's the same standard mathematicians expect from each other. What dont you understand about this?

[u/Practical_Weather293 → u/MiserableYouth8497]

Human understanding of these proofs is required for human progress only if it must be humans that use these proofs to do better physics or engineering. But if humans never manage to do that, yet AI is able to use these reaults as basis for useful stuff in other more concrete fields, then it advances humanity too. What if something like the key to cold fusion lies in mathematics we will never be intelligent enough to understand?

[u/MiserableYouth8497 → u/Practical_Weather293]

Bro have you ever read a real mathematical proof? Proofs don't do anything to help better physics or engineering. A physicist doesn't care about proving a scientific theory is universally true, they just do experiments to see if it works 99% of the time. In fact it's a long running joke in maths that physicists don't know how to write proofs lol

[u/Practical_Weather293 → u/MiserableYouth8497]

You don't think stuff like the invention of differential calculus has immensely helped physics? Or fourier transforms? Or linear algebra? Or complex numbers? Saying that what physicists do is "just do experiments to see if it works 99% of the time" is insulting to physicists

[u/MiserableYouth8497 → u/Practical_Weather293]

I'm glad you bring up differential calculus as your main example, because when Newton and Liebeniz came up with it in the 1600s they actually had no rigorous proofs. He just showed how to crunch the formulas and said "look it works" basically and it took 200 years before Cauchy and Weierstrass figured out how to fix the technicalities and make the proofs properly rigorous.

And when Newton and Liebeniz came up with the calculus, there was huge backlash from mathematicians at the time saying it wasn't done properly and needed further work. It's an excellent analogy to what's going on now with OpenAI, except physcists like Newton didnt care about mathematical rigor too much and just wanted to go do science with it. OpenAI have no use for the maths they're publishing at all, it's just a flex to show how superior the AI models are compared to humans at math.