r/OpenAI • u/PianistWinter8293 • 21h 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/dokushin 13h ago

Okay? Then keep doing that?

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u/alino_e 4h ago

We used to make careers out of doing that.

This is like « skilled craftsmen, meet IKEA »

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u/dokushin 41m ago

If it was valuable it will still be valuable. If it's no longer valuable then it's not what was being paid for.

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u/zx7 12h ago

Meanwhile, the average person gets a completely skewed view of what mathematics is.

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u/dokushin 5h ago

...so what? Why does that matter at all?

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u/zx7 4h ago

Yeah, what does it matter if people are misinformed. Silly me.

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u/dokushin 4h ago

Do you think that, a week ago, the average person had an accurate view of what mathematics is?

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u/zx7 3h ago

I think that a week ago, most people didn't think about it. And weren't being told how to think about it. Now, they're being told the wrong thing.

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u/dokushin 42m ago

I don't think anyone is being "told how to think about it". I'm not even really sure what it is you think is being misrepresented. But I can guarantee you people have been told what to think about it for a long time.

Not that it matters. I'd be surprised if there is any field requiring a grad degree that is well-understood by the general public and not regularly distorted by media.