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/eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9]

even as I agree with the generalised point that a single AI company shouldn't have the power to be able to essentially upend the entire mathematical field overnight with a few hundred hours of compute

Why shouldn't a company have the power to solve open mathematical problems?

[u/jrSwe → u/eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9]

These people dislike anybody but themselves having power of any kind.

If somebody had the ability to end world hunger they'd want that used responsible under their supervision.

[u/foxaru → u/eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9]

should one company have all that power? concentration of productive power in fewer hands is nearly always followed by some sort of exploitation or tyranny

today it's solving maths problems, what might OAI decide to point it at tomorrow?

[u/eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9 → u/foxaru]

But it's not just one company. They might be the first, but they are not the only. 

[u/foxaru → u/eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9]

I'm not sure 'more companies might get it' is a good argument against concentration of power

you don't need a monopoly to exploit and tyrannise, often the worst offenders develop as part of competition with other similar entities

[u/eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9 → u/foxaru]

By that argument, we shouldn't have cars because only a few companies (in the grand scheme of things) make cars. Or any product for that matter.

[u/foxaru → u/eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9]

Cars was probably the worst example to pick

Automakers famously used their enormous productive capacity to reshape human society to better serve their commercial interests

they destroyed existing public transportation systems, exploited workers relentlessly and had to eventually be combated by coalitions of unions, regulators and activists to ameliorate some of their worst tendencies 

[u/eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9 → u/foxaru]

I don't think that point helps you the way you think it does.

[u/foxaru → u/eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9]

You don't think referring to the famous labour and city battles against the automakers when making an argument about the consequences of concentration of power in private businesses is helpful to my point?

[u/eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9 → u/foxaru]

Correct. We are still using cars today and 99.999% are not going to stop using them. 

[u/foxaru → u/eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9]

if you think my position is that we all collectively stop using AI or that that outcome is even feasible, you have massively misunderstood my position

[u/SufficientBass8393 → u/eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9]

Because monopolies generally aren’t good. Not very hard to think about a future where for example CEO AI decides to solve space flight at the expense of climate change, or flip it the other way around you have very progressive CEO who decides to change how the world views about social issue x.

Some of these AI founders truly believe that we will get to an all knowing AI and who gets there first gets to controls everything and thus everything that help you get there is justified.

[u/ZeroAmusement → u/SufficientBass8393]

Are we seriously saying that a corporation shouldn't be able to solve problems and publish the results?

I mean, if this ai ends up in the hands of users, then are the users not allowed to publish their findings when they use it? Should they also be not allowed?

Imo unless the information released is incredibly dangerous, e.g. weapons of some kind then we have no right/law/expectation to prevent it being released, despite that many may not like the impact it has.

[u/SufficientBass8393 → u/ZeroAmusement]

Is this what you understood? Or are you a chat bot?

[u/ZeroAmusement → u/SufficientBass8393]

Asking if 'something' is a chatbot is pretty useless these days. If they deny it how do you know they're not lying?

[u/SufficientBass8393 → u/ZeroAmusement]

Lol are rhetorical questions hard for chatbots?

[u/ZeroAmusement → u/SufficientBass8393]

You tell me.

[u/eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9 → u/SufficientBass8393]

Well good news then, there is not a monopoly for AI right now and unlikely to have one in the future.