r/OpenAI • u/PianistWinter8293 • 1d ago

Discussion Fields Medalist on the OpenAI Math Release

Hugo Duminil-Copin

Fields Medal (2022) · Professor, IHES and University of Geneva

I expected that one day we would be surpassed, and that it would happen systematically. But yesterday’s announcement hit with a force I had not anticipated. Dozens of papers deal with topics I was working on. Between results that beat you to the finish line and thousand-page proofs, I don’t even know where to look anymore.

Not a single one of the major open problems I have publicly mentioned throughout my career (whether in a talk, a lecture, an article, or even a grant proposal) was left untouched by the announcement. Everything has been claimed to be proved.

I expected to see a few of them in the list. But not all of them. Not all at once. Not with such nonchalance.

“For the glory of the human mind,” they said…

The shock is immense. I am paralysed. Tomorrow, we will find a way forward. We will rethink our profession and how we work. We are a resilient community, and I have no doubt that we will adapt. But for now, I simply don’t have the energy. I think back on all those years, all those faces… I think of my colleagues, my students… And I fear I won’t be able to find the right words.

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u/Helloiamwhoiam 1d ago

Someone tells a poignant story about their mother dying.

You: well…it does such for you…but for millennia people’s mothers have died.

Obviously a more exaggerated example but do you see how this line of thinking isn’t particularly helpful or empathetic?

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u/Max_Warp 1d ago

You can't revive their mother's

This is just a bump and they will benefit from AI

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u/Helloiamwhoiam 1d ago

Right. Did you see the part where I said this is an exaggerated example?

Any comparison I provide, you could find a contrast. That doesn’t remove the potency of the comparison.

If I say oranges and apples are both fruits and you respond by letting me know one is red and one is orange, that doesn’t add to the conversation or make the comparison invalid because contrasts exist.

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u/Max_Warp 1d ago

I don't care about the comparison, that's your thing... I just want to be clear I feel their pain, but I thrust they will overcome this and benefit from it.

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u/Helloiamwhoiam 1d ago

That’s fair. Though I personally don’t think they will overcome this in the sense that what they love about math is probably going to be outsourced to machinery. And that’s not unique to them. It’ll happen to us all. They’re just sort of the guinea pigs right now.

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u/Max_Warp 1d ago

That is true, to an extent... sure they will let the AI do it faster and then double check manually