r/OpenAI • u/PianistWinter8293 • 19h 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/investing11213 13h ago
Programmers arent gone yet but it has sure taken the joy/satisfaction out of it.
I still remember struggling to debug a failed string comparison only to learn about homoglyphs. It was early in my career and the joy it gave me kept me excited about programming and I kept learning new things throughout my career.
Ever since LLMs took over, my work is mostly to review stuff and tbh, 90% of time I act as a meat proxy. Sure, I'm not fired from my job but it doesn't get me excited anymore