Terence Tao's Association for Human Mathematics calls for a boycott of OpenAI over its mass release of AI-written proofs
An advisory group of mathematicians had asked labs to stop testing open problems on proprietary models. OpenAI says that is exactly what it is doing.
Mathematicians are pushing back on OpenAI's release this week of hundreds of AI-generated manuscripts that claim solutions to open problems. The Association for Human Mathematics, chaired by Fields Medalist Terence Tao, says OpenAI broke core norms of scientific research by publishing the proofs. The group is urging mathematicians to stop working with the company. Tao posted the statement as a guest post on his blog. The Decoder reports that many of the papers are so dense and oddly written that even leading experts need AI help to follow them, if they can follow them at all. Complexity theorist Scott Aaronson called the situation a "Mathocalypse." TechCrunch reports that the release falls short of guidelines from the Advisory Group on Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence. That group of nine researchers is hosted by Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, and OpenAI had consulted it. The group's first request was that labs stop testing advanced mathematical problems on proprietary models. OpenAI's release says it is evaluating its proprietary models on open research problems. The advisory group said it is "ultimately up to the mathematical community" to judge whether its recommendations were followed. TechCrunch also points to a new paper that found gaps between the natural-language and formal versions of a solution to a million-dollar problem that OpenAI's models had reportedly solved. The dispute centers on whether a problem can count as solved before humans have independently checked and understood the proof.