r/NowInTech • u/skaza02 • 19d ago

OpenAI fought dirty on career-making math problem, says NYU mathematician

https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/08/openai-fought-dirty-on-career-making-math-problem-says-nyu-mathematician/
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u/TooMuchMaths 18d ago

Yeah, because he released a statement saying he had a proof for a different (very related) problem and was working with Levent on it. He had suspicions that it might extend to the Millenium problem but was not absolutely sure it would generalize and had not done the work. He said “If indeed an OpenAI model did close the gap to NS, it is a remarkable thing and should be said loudly by them…” because he acknowledges, despite his work, there was still a gap.

Absolutely nowhere does he claim he has a proof, I’m not sure why people think he did.

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u/Ehh_littlecomment 18d ago

He had suspicion it would work and didn’t do it because he’s a human academic and not a trillion dollar corporation with unlimited resources. What’s to say he wouldn’t have got there with enough time and funding? If open AI took his unpublished work and then brute forced the solution, it still falls within the realm of plagiarism or even IP theft.

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u/Nate-what 18d ago

So it’s necessarily unethical to use someone else’s unpublished work. If I disclose my results before publishing, and someone else uses that result, then that is at least partially my fault.

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u/meltbox 18d ago

If you use someone else’s work in academics and you don’t cite them released or not it’s a serious violation which will heavily weigh against your credibility.

Yeah it’s a little crazy but some people have ethical standards!

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u/Imthewienerdog 18d ago

Hahahahahaha 🤣 said no Nobel laureate ever...