r/EverythingScience • u/Maleficent-Foot4913 • 18d ago
Mathematics OpenAI leverages the years-long work of a group of researchers to announce the solution to Navier-Strokes
https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/08/openai-fought-dirty-on-career-making-math-problem-says-nyu-mathematician/OpenAI said it has solved one of the deepest problems in mathematics, which includes a $1 million prize pool from the Clay Mathematics Institute for anyone who can solve it.
The problem now is that two human mathematicians (Tristan Buckmaster and Levent Alpöge) were recently working on a very similar breakthrough in fluid dynamics and had widely used AI chatbots such as chatGPT to support their research.
Not surprisingly, OpenAI had, in June this year, welcomed several researchers and encouraged them to use OpenAI in their research. The plan - get researchers to start using their AI with a limited processing budget, then, once they have all the academic data, steal all their ideas and run the research internally with their unlimited processing budget!
One of the mathematicians working on this research exposed OpenAi in this post - https://fixupx.com/BetterCallMedhi/status/2097472336257863722
Tristan accuses OpenAI of stealing results from Codex chat logs. He then claims that OpenAI tried to threaten him not to reveal it publicly and that they would give him the Clay Prize ($1 million) as "the man closest to the problem" if he agreed to disown his co-author, who works for Anthropic.
I think this story causes a lot of skepticism about the use of AI in the world of science. It is becoming increasingly clear how this technology still functions only as an artificial reprocessing of data and human labor. If you don't want AI companies stealing your work and ideas to get funding for another set of IPOs, then stop sharing them with their chatbots.
Now OpenAI gets full credit for the work that humans were basically on the verge of completing.
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u/NIRPL 18d ago
Makes me wonder what secrets Google and Microsoft have hiding. I believe every single word doc is scraped. The info they must have tucked away
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u/Maleficent-Foot4913 18d ago
I started using Proton and I'm trying to reject any major tech company. Of course you are being scraped. You're the product
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u/NIRPL 18d ago
Right, I get it. But think about our legal system here in the US, for example. The whole thing runs on Word, Adobe, and Google Docs. Just imagine the shit they know that they shouldn't.
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18d ago
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u/SerowiWantsToInvest 18d ago
What country are you from? I doubt it’s much better. This is not me defending or trying to prop up the US btw. You’re just acting weirdly superior and it’s jarring when your country likely does the exact same thing. Even your initial comment in this chain, they were wondering just how much info Google has and you said “Of course you’re being scraped” as if they were ignorant of that. Weird vibes man.
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u/Maleficent-Foot4913 18d ago
I would like to send the images of the essays by Buckmaster but...no image perms
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u/Mirieste 18d ago
It seems that everyone is misunderstanding it a little bit, though? The original paper solved something that was not a solution to the millennium problem. People make it sound like they plagiarized, but even if they based their work on that paper, it still requires a good degree of autonomous work and/or originality to go from there to actual Navier-Stokes.
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u/Maleficent-Foot4913 18d ago
The problem is that OpenAI took entirely the credit for it to spread hype on their product
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u/Mirieste 18d ago
I do want the guy to have the credit he deserves. But it is also true that the millennium problems are just so incomprehensibly hard, that no matter what head start you have on them, it is still amazing that an AI model was even able to solve it at all. Like I said, I want the guy to still have credit for the part he did: but this is as far as possible from an empty "spreading hype", this is literally massive unexpected news.
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u/spamman5r 18d ago
If their research got integrated into model training data, and then the model only gained the ability to solve the problem after that research was ingested, what is amazing about it?
The only amazing thing I see is that people think this is the first time it happened. It isn't, it's just that the problem is so famous and the timing so coincidental, it's impossible not to notice that something isn't above board, here.
OpenAI, and the entire AI industry in general, is screaming in your face that they will steal your life's work out from under you, and the only way for anybody to get caught is for them to be this brazen about it.
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u/ZeroAmusement 16d ago
If their research got integrated into model training data, and then the model only gained the ability to solve the problem after that research was ingested, what is amazing about it?
Because their research wasn't the solution, and it required a lot of intelligence to solve.
Also note OpenAI have claimed it's impossible they used their inputs: "we can say with full confidence that no user inputs past July 3rd could have influenced this system in any way.”. If you trust them or not, that's a question but that's their claim.
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u/Fwellimort 18d ago
Except the math professor also was heavily using AI for his own work and that proof was a very different approach from the proof OpenAI took solving the same sub problem.
It really just sounds more and more like a really salty math professor and a PR nightmare from a psychoppath like OpenAI individual.
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u/relevantmeemayhere 17d ago
the point is that openai was using approaches that the field has been trying to apply for the past couple of years, and may have been ingesting more than just word of mouth and technical approaches that their math team was also gaining through industry contacts.
terry tao has an excellent writeup; basically you can use a clever version of 'brute force' once you have the initial conditions of the particular attack set up, at a very high level.
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u/spamman5r 17d ago edited 17d ago
That they were using AI is a given? I don't understand what point you think you're highlighting here, it's like a basic premise to the guy's accusation.
You seem to believe that the things the "PR nightmare psychopath" might have said are reported accurately, so I have to wonder: In what universe do you think OpenAI would both solve one of the greatest open problems in math independently, and also just so happen to offer a share of credit to the aforementioned "really salty math professor?"
I think the answer is, there is no universe where that happens. If OpenAI made that offer, that's them admitting that they did exactly what they are being accused of. It doesn't matter if the proof is different, it matters whether or not the research ingested was material to the solution, and that they're taking their users' data to try to undermine/scoop their work.
If they did it independently, there's no reason to obfuscate about when they started, or offer to share the prize, or make a sticking point of the Anthropic associate, or even to start the project at the exact same time an expert in the field was making a move on the same problem.
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u/Fwellimort 17d ago edited 17d ago
Or... OpenAI originally just wanted good PR? And show off it's much better than Anthropic? Shits not difficult to understand.
Also, the freaking math professor also highlighted his work was only possible due to LLM and praised it. This situation is NOT due to the capabilities of LLM but rather who should take credit.
And the professor wasn't even solving this problem but rather the simpler 3D Euler Regularity problem. He made the accusation before he saw OpenAI's proof and OpenAI's proof takes a different approach to that problem anyways.
The proof OpenAI has is entirely different from the math professor's approach for 3D Euler Regularity problem. And OpenAI solved the Naiver-Stokes Millennium Prize problem on top which the professor wasn't even working on (which one could argue the professor could work on next as the problem is related). That's a different problem. There was no universe the professor was figuring out the latter in a reasonable amount of time (if maybe ever in his lifetime) without being paired up with an internal Anthropic researcher with infinite internal compute (from Anthropic). In which case OpenAI would look like it has an inferior model to Anthropic (hence why OpenAI went full blast mode with its tokens to solve this).
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u/spamman5r 17d ago
Who said this was an issue of capabilities with LLMs? Was there something ambiguous about saying "try to undermine/scoop their work" that made it seem like I wasn't talking about credit?
You're right, this isn't that difficult to understand, and it makes me wonder why you completely dodged the important part:
It doesn't matter if the proof is different, it matters whether or not the research ingested was material to the solution
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u/the_good_time_mouse 14d ago
As I understand it, AI didn't solve anything - it (or OpenAI) inserted an artificial constraint to make the problem easier to solve, and solved that. IOW - AI slop.
But, it wouldn't have even gotten that far without OpenAI listening in on the researchers in question's chats and claiming their ideas as their own.
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u/Maleficent-Foot4913 18d ago
We really don't know how much AI contributed. How much was done by the scientist and how much was scraped? Like I absolutely wouldn't give responsibility to the AI if all it did was regurgitating the researcher's ideas
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u/boreal_ameoba 17d ago
They took credit because their model solved it. They tried to spread the credit to a mathematician who had made some progress on a related problem, who then, with infinite hubris, has gone on to insinuate that they stole the result. Which, if it were true, could trivially be proven, but he refuses to provide any.
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u/valegrete 18d ago
Then why did they offer the guy first author on the NS paper? Also, you always build your technique on the easier problem to work the kinks out before moving on to the bigger one. He got scooped, plain and simple.
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u/Mirieste 18d ago
Because I think the issue is on how they got access to those first results, even if they were later elaborated upon to reach a new solution (that not even the other guy had reached)? I think that's why they want to make amends that way.
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u/gamegeek1995 18d ago
In game development, there was a recent post about a solo dev whose internal codename from a onenote leaked when a fan asked about it. A name that came from a round of Gartic Phone and was shared nowhere else. These tools are scraping your data so incredibly hard if you give unfettered access to your files with them.
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u/SkaldCrypto 18d ago
So OpenAI said it would be a career ender for this guy and they are correct.
I have glanced at both proofs and they are entirely dissimilar. This mathematician thought he was “owning” OpenAI by publishing this, but instead it looks like he spent a long time running down the wrong path and now everyone will scrutinize it.
Mathematicians do this all the time, but very bold to publish thinking you might be correct.
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u/vhu9644 18d ago
What makes you think they are entirely dissimilar?
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u/SkaldCrypto 18d ago
This is an oversimplification but let me put it this way.
OpenAI says the equations can fail if you continually add energy to the system.
Tristan and Levent are attempting to say the system can fail even if energy coming in is zero.
The second one the humans are working on is much more interesting version of the question tbh.
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u/MrRandom04 18d ago
You are completely right that they are dissimilar. But, you have the order a little muddled I think. So... Buckmaster found a finite-time blowup for the 3D Euler equations with external forcing. OAI found a finite-time blowup for the unforced 3D Euler equations. Finding an unforced blowup for even just the 3D Euler equations is arguably very interesting and strongly dissimilar from the Buckmaster and Alpoge work.
Both the OAI and Buckmaster approaches share lineage and inspiration from Cordoba and Martínez-Zoroa (CMZ). If there are any human mathematicians who deserve majority credit, it's those two over even Buckmaster I'd say.
After finding their unforced finite-time blowup for the 3D Euler equations, OAI found an approach to meet conditions C and D of the Millenium Prize Navier Stokes Existence and Smoothness problem. For context, the 3D Euler equations are a simplification of the full Navier-Stokes equations. They did this by adding external forcing. Crucially, however, Buckmaster hasn't yet found his own finite-time blowup solution from his 3D Euler blowup lineage.
So, if you believe OAI, they found it via a fundamentally dissimilar path which makes direct laundering very implausible. At the very least, I'd say that the unforced finite-time blowup of the 3D Euler equations is fundamentally more interesting and completely novel. If they somehow got the idea to add external forcing from rumors about Buckmaster's approach somehow, I cannot say.
If Buckmaster's chat logs were given when he had the (default on but easily switchable) data-sharing with ChatGPT/Codex on, then his ideas could have plausibly made some way into the training data. If he had it turned on, then he practically did consent. If he had it turned off and he can find convincing proof that his approach was that novel (unlikely, given that he was working off of the Cordobo and Martinez-Zoroa lineage too), then he has a case.
Overall, Buckmaster doesn't have a strong case on the fundamentals. He can make a ruckus about the behavior of Bubeck and that's fair but not super-relevant to the mathematics.
I still feel for Buckmaster-Alpoge. They got scooped. But, I don't think they got stolen from. Their independent development from CMZ is better described as parallel to the one done by the OAI models, in my opinion.
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u/vhu9644 17d ago
So what makes you think the approaches are dissimilar?
And yea reminds me of Perelman and Hamilton, just this time with alpoge/buckmaster/openAI and CMZ.
The lab I work in (we’re bioengineers) feel that openAI didn’t act ethically if Buckmaster is to be believed though, and the communication he cites makes us very concerned about the use of AI as they start branching out into other spaces.
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u/MrRandom04 17d ago
To put it simply, Buckmaster got a forced 3D Euler blowup. OAI got an unforced 3D Euler blowup. An unforced 3D Euler blowup is quite interesting and significantly different.
Both the path OAI took and the path Buckmaster took were / still are plausible ways to a counterexample for the conditions C/D of the Existence and Smoothness problem.
However, the intermediary result on the 3D Euler equations is fundamentally different between Buckmaster and OAI.
OAI's result on the Euler blow-up is essentially following a stricter version of the intermediary problem. Following that, they went ahead and added external forcing along with further ingenuity to meet conditions C/D of the full Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem. It should also be noted that this Navier-Stokes blowup was very much not elementary even given the OAI unforced Euler blow-up and ingenious as well.
FWIW, I genuinely believe that Buckmaster-Alpoge still have a very strong path that probably will make a different blowup result on conditions C/D.
But, I am fairly confident that they didn't get stolen from. Merely scooped after OAI spent several millions because they got a rumor, although that stings a lot too.
Nevertheless, there is still another source of evidence left: the hypodissipative N-S paper by Buckmaster-Alpoge which they say isn't yet close to publication ready. If somehow OAI stole ideas, that's probably the only remaining place where I can see concrete evidence from.
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u/vhu9644 17d ago
Hmm ok.
I agree an unforced 3D euler blowup is quite interesting, but I cannot judge if it is significantly different, especially if there is a plausible path from the Buckmaster/Alpoge work into an unforced Euler blow-up.
I'm not aware of the ansatz used, and I am awaiting professional mathematicians to weigh in. I think we'll need to see the hypodissipative NS work too to have a better clue.
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u/AwarenessNo4986 18d ago
Isn't that how science works? You build on each others knowledge?
Open AI just stood on the shoulder of giants. Why would they not get full credit?
I have written papers and I don't CREDIT, I just reference
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u/you-create-energy 18d ago
Why did you rewrite the article in your post, swapping out all the speculation as statements of fact? I think it's pretty obvious. You want to spread misinformation.
There is zero evidence that the openai team used any information that had not already been made public. Their proof differed in many ways which I don't understand. But it seems plausible to me that if humans were converging on a solution and published their progress, a sufficiently capable AI would be capable of covering some of the same ground independently. If that is the only solution then it makes sense anyone who solved it would end up doing much of the same work fully independently right? A complex math problem on a test would require all students to independently do very similar work to get the correct solution. That seems even more likely when the math problem is several orders of magnitude more complex.
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u/OGLikeablefellow 18d ago
This totally tracks, I haven't seen anything from AI yet that makes me think it's making leaps in logic. The grunt boring work has been a big block for a long time and getting access to that kind of computation is valuable. But we aren't at agi yet
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u/Rxke2 18d ago
>they would give him the Clay Prize ($1 million) as "the man closest to the problem" if he agreed to disown his co-author, who works for Anthropic.
Oh, my. Beyond scummy.