OpenAI Is Pissing Off a Bunch of Mathematicians—Again
Mathematicians are expressing frustration with OpenAI for releasing AI-generated mathematical solutions without following traditional academic peer-review processes. Critics argue that the company is prioritizing corporate PR and speed over scientific rigor.
Why it matters
It highlights the growing tension between the rapid, profit-driven development of AI models and the established norms of the scientific community.
Attendees responded with “a mixture of excitement and dread,” but the meeting was a promising first step, recalls Northwestern University mathematician Bryna Kra. The group, she tells WIRED, asked the firm not to just publish them in a blog or tweet, like they had done with 10 problems earlier that month. Instead, it would be important for OpenAI to publish papers explaining the work so that mathematicians could absorb, digest, and use the results, according to Kra. “Apparently, that input was ignored,” she says.
OpenAI has told people it plans to dump hundreds of the results it referenced in the August meeting on GitHub on Tuesday, people familiar with the plans tell WIRED. The release would be the latest of tens of thousands of mathematical solutions generated by AI this year, as frontier models become increasingly capable.
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