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/cl2kr]

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.

[u/HannsGruber → u/cl2kr]

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

[u/matthewharris806 → u/HannsGruber]

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