OpenAI fought dirty on career-making math problem, says NYU mathematician
There is a $1 million bounty for the first person providing a solution to the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem.
TL;DR
- NYU professor Tristan Buckmaster and Anthropic mathematician Levent Alpöge announced preliminary proofs for a major unsolved math problem.
- Buckmaster alleges OpenAI used knowledge of their work, developed with AI models like Codex, to achieve a full proof of the Navier-Stokes problem first.
- The Navier-Stokes problem is one of the seven Millennium Prize problems, with a $1 million bounty.
- OpenAI claims their research began on September 1st, inspired by rumors of solutions, and denies accessing Buckmaster's specific work.
- Buckmaster expresses suspicion over OpenAI's chosen approach, which he claims was uncommon and similar to his own.
- There are also allegations of OpenAI attempting to remove Alpöge's credit and veiled threats made to Buckmaster regarding his career.
- OpenAI acknowledges that de-identified data from user interactions might have contributed to model improvements, but disputes significant overlap in their proofs.
- The controversy is expected to intensify discussions about AI's role and ethical considerations in scientific research.