The research community is in uproar after OpenAI released a trove of more than 700 mathematical preprints entirely generated by AI on 6 October. The San Francisco, California-based maker of ChatGPT posted the preprints on the software repository Github.
Although some mathematicians celebrated the solution of longstanding problems, others took to social media to complain about being scooped. Some were incensed at what one physicist called a ‘slopocalypse’, even if the mathematical content could end up being formally correct.
I saw the Wired article yesterday, it’s worse than it sounds.
For at least one of the problems an OpneAI researcher initiated a partnership with a mathametician, loaded all of his work into a chatbot without his knowledge, and then published the result as 100% from the chatbot in this “trove”.
When the mathematician confronted the OpenAI employee, he was told sharing credit was “too complicated” so they wouldn’t acknowledge he had already mostly had it done. When he tried to push back, OpenAI then threatened his career if he tried to tell people what had happened.
It’s is very very unlikely that was a single case. If that happened once, they definitely at least tried it more than once.
Even if it actually solved anything, taking in years of human work and then spitting out one last step is nowhere near what they’re portraying this as. They’re intentionally making it sound like they just gave the chat or the problem and it solved what a human couldn’t.
All it did was steal human work and rush publication
The whole threatening careers thing happened with navier stokes too.
These people are completely rotten to the core.
The fluid equation folks?
https://x.com/doomslide/status/2108121379660832930
here’s a paper in their dump that is very similar to what humans uploaded a month ago
same poster goes on to say that the scale of the intellectual fraud is unbelievable
OpenAI then threatened his career if he tried to tell people what had happened.
and thus ended academic collaborations with OpenAI.
Solving math proofs with AI is like doing art with AI. Pointless. In fact, it is detrimental to the discipline as a whole, because doing so means people will stop sharing work and insights with each other, which has never been the case before (at least it’s not the norm).
As discussed on MathandAI.org and elsewhere, top mathematicians “disseminate ideas in talks, private discussions and careful writeups, connecting them to the previous ideas of others. These processes invariably take time and are based on human interaction.”
AI is undermining this process, as people naturally become less willing to discuss ideas that can easily be stolen.
I don’t know what you’re trying to say, and I feel like you don’t either.
This means people will stop sharing work and insights with each other, which has never before been the case.
That part was clearly, but obviously false on multiple levels
I’m actually paraphrasing Terence Tao and some of the top mathematicians on the planet. These discussions have been prevalent across the maths community.
It’s not common knowledge, but mathematical proofs aren’t intrinsically valuable (in any way whatsoever) outside of the mathematical community capable of deriving them. They are valuable because they create a mathematical community, not the other way around.
Scientific discoveries are different. Scientific insights without scientists are still useful to society. Not so mathematical proofs without mathematicians.
I’m actually paraphrasing Terence Tao
That doesn’t even mean you’re saying the same thing bud…
Non-mathematicians don’t realize this, but proofs aren’t intrinsically valuable outside of what they mean about the community capable of creating them.
Do you think “non-mathematicians” think solving a math problem magically gets someone a check? Like, if anythi g you have it backwards
You’re way off on everything though.
You should paraphrase less, wait till after you understand what you’re reading.
I provided a link. Are you… not able to read?
What do you think I mean by “valuable” and why would that equal “getting a check”?
Fucking bizarre. This might be the dumbest conversation I’ve participated in this week.
“Why is OpenAI trying to solve hundreds of math problems to be released all at once?”, he added.
even if the mathematical content could end up being formally correct.
It should be noted that none of what they released has been verified. Throwing 700 papers out there is intentional to generate buzz, “hey look how great we are”, and to slow attempts at proving or disproving their results. That way even if a few get disproven early they can still say “well that’s just a couple out of hundreds” because it’s gonna take forever to work through the slop dump. It could be a long time before we get a percentage of accuracy and by then most people will have forgotten or lost interest since the headline will be stale by then.
some mathematicians who might find their research projects pre-empted by the OpenAI release. “We should put that aside for today though. … he wrote, because it shows how quickly the technology has become useful to mathematicians.”
Yeah this fucks the researchers. Funding could get pulled from related projects leaving their work in hiatus until someone can check the slop for accuracy. Till then someone can just point to this and say “oh it’s already been solved” like it’s a done deal already.
“Look how useful we are!!!” Turns in unverified crap
Throwing 700 papers out there is intentional to generate buzz, “hey look how great we are”, and to slow attempts at proving or disproving their results.
The Gish gallop is a rhetorical technique in which a person in a debate attempts to overwhelm an opponent by presenting an excessive number of arguments, without regard for their accuracy or strength, with a rapidity that makes it impossible for the opponent to address them in the time available. Gish galloping prioritizes the quantity of the galloper’s arguments at the expense of their quality.
The term “Gish gallop” was coined in 1994 by the anthropologist Eugenie Scott, who named it after the creationist Duane Gish, described by Scott as the technique’s “most avid practitioner”.[1][2]
Someone should just say they are all wrong. Then tell OpenAI to prove which one is right.
mathematicians are up in arms
… [quotes a physicist]… [paywall]…
Can someone please explain to a non-mathematician what the issue is specifically?
We all want the problems solved, right? Is there a wrong way to solve them? Or a process that people are supposed to follow not to “scoop” others? A honor system of sorts?
If a human dropped the same 700 solutions online, would it still be bad?
There are two issues really - one is a perception that they’re not vetting any of this output, just dumping it out on the internet and expecting real mathematicians to actually check it all, so yes if a human was doing the same thing it’d probably still be suspect.
The other is the widely held suspicion that much of the “breakthrough” mathematics here has been stolen from real researchers who’ve been using chatgpt to develop their theories by talking to it
I think a mathematician with no skin in the game should just make a big post saying “All 700 are wrong, no I am not going to show my work, if you disagree prove which one you think is right” put the ball back in OpenAI’s court.
Maybe instead they should just generate slop counterproofs for every single one. Then everyone defending OpenAI’s dump will have to either read through all the shit or acknowledge that it’s not worth the effort to verify slop.
Bold of you to assume OpenAI cares if they’re right.
They should care because if they don’t respond, everybody else stops caring and their PR stunt has little payoff.
I need an account to access that.
Managed to screengrab before the popup appeared
Thank you
I don’t have an account either. there’s a faint x on the top right. pressing it worked for me (Firefox on Android)
Solving a problem has no value if no one understands the solution.
is there any evidence that it is harder to understand a proof than to make it in the first place? because I suspect that it is generally easier to understand the proof than to produce it.
There’s an onus now on those that care about math to check the proofs. If errors are found in one their might be similar errors in another. A serial release would have been cleaner and allowed commentary that might help improve the accuracy or perhaps even the way the model conveyed the data to make it more understandable / digestable.
Openai dug the problems up from somewhere. They could have collaborated with some of the people that defined the problems in the first place. This is just perpetuation of their culture of theft.
Why would you work if someone else gets the salary?
