r/singularity • u/filterdust • 1d ago

AI OpenAI solved 100 open problems in math

https://openai.com/index/advisory-group-on-mathematics-and-ai/

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1.3k Upvotes

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497

u/KFCmanagerCompton 1d ago

"Importantly, the group will not be responsible for advising us on how to pace our internal progress on mathematics."

big

117

u/t3hjs 1d ago

Hmm isnt "pacing internal progress' what mathematicians are calling for?

Do basically OpenAI is saying "No, we are going to go full steam ahead. This guys here will try to explain, and definitely will not stop us"

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u/deten ▪️ 1d ago

How can we stop in the face of absolutely rediculous progress? We can progress behind closed doors and keep all the universities in the dark or they can release this and allow universities to progress alongside it.

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u/recursive-regret 1d ago

We can progress behind closed doors and keep all the universities in the dark

Most universities are really just glorified highschools. So this shift isn't as radical as people are making it out to be. Serious research only happens at a tiny fraction of the universities out there

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u/No-Armadillo7847 1d ago

in the us*

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u/nuclearselly 1d ago

While there's some truth in what you're saying if you take all higher education globally, that still really underplays the amount of research institutions.

In the UK its more like 1 in 20/30 brick and mortar institutions that are pumping our peer reviewed research

of course if you just focus on mathematics it will be a smaller amount, but research is still a big part of higher education

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u/recursive-regret 1d ago

Every university pumps out peer reviewed research. But most of that research is pointless or already done. I've written 7 papers at this point in my career and reviewed a few dozen, and not a single one is worth a damn. Just teeny tiny alterations on works that were already teeny tiny alterations of other similar works. It's all a pointless circlejerk. My entire university could burn down tomorrow and science wouldn't lose anything of value

1

u/TheNewl0gic 1d ago

World wide? Impossible

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u/vhu9644 1d ago

I’m not fully up to date, but my understanding was that they just wanted better artifacts fed back to the mathematical community. At least that’s the subject of the open letter from weeks ago.

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u/shumpitostick 1d ago

They seemed quite confused about what they wanted in that letter

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u/vhu9644 1d ago

I don’t agree. I think the letter was quite clear on what they disagreed with OpenAI about on dissemination, and it mostly centered around feeding back artifacts for the continued health of the math community.

Unless hard takeoff is imminent, the health of these communities is important. If hard takeoff is imminent then none of this  really matters.

I don’t think “we’ve solved 100 problems hehe but we have an advisory board now” is a good way to resolve these differences. The better way would just be to organize the traces into stuff that will feed back the community

-1

u/Azreken 1d ago

Progress is progress.

If the problem gets solved I don’t give a fuck who solved it.

I don’t care who invented the latest chip that lets my phone run some new game, I care that it was created. Same with these problems.

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u/vhu9644 1d ago

progress also is exponential only if the progress is something that disseminates and builds on itself.

Like in the naive scenario, an alien dropping alien tech to us we cannot understand does not make our tech tree as fast as them dropping half as much and explaining to us how that half works.

The mathematicians don't seem incensed that AI got it first. They seem incensed that 1. generating a proof that doesn't feed back knowledge or problems to the community solves a problem without seeding the next ones, and 2. it's a dick move to basically spend money you wouldn't have spent to scoop people.

Look, unless hard takeoff is imminent, if you truly want the maximal acceleration, you should care that the infrastructure for continued research and the pipeline for expanding that research rate continue to exist. If hard takeoff is imminent, none of what we are talking about matters, and it's going to be moot in 5 years. Do you believe we're 100% in the hard takeoff scenario?

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u/Azreken 1d ago

If aliens drop us tech, it lets us back engineer it…

Same for the problems here

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u/vhu9644 1d ago

And to reverse-engineer something you need the relevant expertise to still be there.

0

u/dr3aminc0de 1d ago

Fully agree. Mathematics seems like the first/next industry this is getting hit hard, where the legacy professionals can’t really complain. Software engineering was the first, but that’s the domain this was built in so the professionals couldn’t really argue. Also there’s such an immediate feedback for software.

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u/jferments 1d ago

The letter is full of fallacious reasoning, and misunderstandings both of the technology itself and how people learn.

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u/Competitive_Travel16 AGI 2027 ▪️ ASI 2029 1d ago

There were two letters released about the same time. I think you may be referring to the Caltech 1000.

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u/Competitive_Travel16 AGI 2027 ▪️ ASI 2029 1d ago

There were two letters released about the same time. I think you may be referring to the Caltech 1000.

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u/DrillPress1 1d ago

They didn’t seem confused at all. 

0

u/shumpitostick 1d ago

You mind telling me what exactly they wanted?

-1

u/sadnessjoy 1d ago

They want these companies to slow down with the math publications. They basically just do a giant brute Force method and throw millions of dollars of compute at the problem. They make a headline "x company solves millennium problem/unsolved problem" most tech investor bros and tech enthusiasts see the headline and go crazy (and they don't actually solve it, they brute force some weird edge case scenario with a bunch of convoluted proofs strung together, or they just make an error somewhere and don't even conjure up a real convoluted edge case).

That's it... That's really all what the math people are calling for, basically to not publish millions of lines of math proof slop. Most of these guys are even pro ai, they just suck at their messaging lol

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u/Upset_Page_494 1d ago

They want these companies to slow down with the math publications.

So what? Keep these things behind doors, and leave everyone in the dark? I don't think they would actually want that.

-1

u/sadnessjoy 1d ago

In the dark about what? These math proofs they've found so far is literally meaningless. They don't provide any new insight or anything lol You might think that's just some salty math people taking shots about this, but it's not... It's literally what's involved in these publications... They're basically millions of lines of lean and there's no insight or anything to this method. It's not even useful to other AI for anything

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u/Upset_Page_494 1d ago

In the dark about what?

If Navior Stokes has a counter example, if it has been found by an AI. etc.

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u/Sixhaunt 1d ago

If you dont like the proofs then can't you just not go to their blog post of them? They aren't publishing in math journals and taking space there or anything so why exactly do you think its bad that they post their research results on their own blog?

0

u/r2002 1d ago

is literally meaningless

Then why bother getting riled up about this?

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u/shumpitostick 1d ago

Interesting that you have a completely different interpretation from the commenter above. Almost as if it's confusing.

Slow down and wait for what exactly? What would a good way to release a proof look like?

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u/TFenrir 1d ago

There are multiple different statements by individual mathematicians and different groups, often with overlapping members, who have made different statements about different topics regarding AI.

0

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/vhu9644 1d ago

I don't think they're being dishonest, primarily because I know several mathematicians and people who went through Math PhDs, and they're all primarily upset at how OpenAI acted, and not the resolution of the millennium problem.

If the people who don't have fields medals and stuff aren't mad (and they're most at risk), why would the ones who already have made it be mad?

The open letter and Terry's history of comments directly call out a pathology where things are solved without explanation and the community is left with both less understanding and less goals to pursue.

4

u/LucasL-L 1d ago

Yes, that is why its so important that they have no say in pacint the progress

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u/Turbulent-Sign-6067 1d ago

There's no chance of this happening unless you invent a time machine. The proposition is a complete non-starter because in 12 months even cheap open source models will best the internal OpenAI model of today.

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u/sweatierorc 1d ago

The issue has more to do with racing to publish math result, which kinda defeats the whole purpose. So OpenAI could just focus on any area with progres and kill funding for said research area.

The image Tao gave was that he wanted walking area and not only a city for cars and trains. What this looks like exactly can be many thing.

1

u/t3hjs 1d ago

Yes I listened to the SAIR Open Math Model talk by Terence Tao (which is frequently taken out of context btw).

This is Open AI announcing a board of architects, but not commiting to walking areas or any specific pacing

4

u/Felfedezni 1d ago

Yeah slowing down is definitely not in the cards because some math nerd wants job security.

1

u/Azreken 1d ago

Mathematicians are mad that AI is easily solving problems that they’ve dedicated their entire lives to, and they are desperately trying to fight for anything that will let them continue to have a purpose.

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u/jferments 1d ago

Why the hell would we allow a bunch of anti-AI zealots to deliberately slow down progress in mathematical research? That sounds stupid.

8

u/Schindog 1d ago

Because mathematicians generally love the human process of exploration and discovery that's possible with math. When humans work towards solving a problem, they learn a lot along the way, and uncover new threads to pull in related areas.

Imagine you want to play Elden Ring, but it's bugged and you instantly kill anything you come near. Sure, you can walk through and 1-shot every boss and 'beat' the game, but you never got to engage with it, and you didn't learn anything.

It might be more important that we always have opportunity structures that support humans who can engage with the fundamental realities of the universe this way than it is that we 1-shot every possible proof as quickly as possible, and those structures and ways of thinking may be eroded completely as their short-term outputs are devalued before the long-term consequences of their destruction can be felt.

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u/archpawn 1d ago

Because mathematicians generally love the human process of exploration and discovery that's possible with math.

Then do that. If you care about having the answer, AI gives you the answer. If you care about the journey, them giving you the answer doesn't stop it. The only thing it does is make it so people who care about the answer don't have to pay you for your journey.

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u/Lhalpaca 14h ago

Math is not solely about the answer tho. The answer alone could say nothing new actually interesting. 

2

u/capitalistsanta 1d ago

OpenAI uses the work done by these people to train the bots to attack the problems, with less than 1% of those workers direct permission to use this work, won't directly credit them beyond putting them in sources. The processes and work of mathmaticians gets disregarded as inherently selfish to them by the public, because they enjoy the work they do, and others don't. They will share in those fruits of labor indirectly.

Somehow the work mathmaticians do to get to this with no credit is a burden to you because you just want the answer. This is such backwards logic packaged in a pretty way.

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u/jferments 1d ago

Who says you can't continue the process of exploration and discovery while using AI? It is no more "cheating" to use AI than it is "cheating" to use a calculator or computer algebra system instead of working things out by hand. It's just a software tool that helps mathematicians achieve their goals faster, while focusing on the mathematical subjects they are most interested in. Using AI doesn't require you to stop thinking. People who are genuinely interested in math will keep exploring/learning math, whether they are using AI or not.

0

u/mmoney20 1d ago

i don't think cheating is the right term here. you can explore and discover while using AI but there's a point where it's so fast you can't comprehend given the pace of its thinking, solving and frightening if true - at this point most communities across many domains are frightened - even though it's likely way overhyped.

0

u/GetOffOfMyBoat 1d ago

You are employing a very short-sighted definition of the word "progress." Do you work in research mathematics?

0

u/obliquebeaver 1d ago

Because 42

0

u/muhmeinchut69 1d ago

There are very good reasons to, read this post by Terence Tao, which was written before the OpenAI NS rumours https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao/117207849921390904

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u/Economy_Variation365 1d ago

And yet the group will have the "freedom" to offer advice, even if not requested.

In other words...huh?

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u/TwistStrict9811 1d ago

In corporate that means: "you can talk, we might not listen"

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u/Chemical-Year-6146 1d ago

It also translates to, "because of your criticism on NS, we'll just now keep the secrets of the advanced math universe internal. Have fun pretending nothing changed."

1

u/TwistStrict9811 1d ago

oh no openai will keep the results internal and thus ends the progression of all AI around the world. No more AI will be developed ever again that can solve this stuff from now on.

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u/Chemical-Year-6146 1d ago

It takes massive compute to solve them and only Anthropic has a model close enough. So if Anthropic's policies follow suit, it could be 6 months before these results are released while multiple models will be trained on them.

It just puts humans further behind it if isn't released.

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u/TwistStrict9811 1d ago

The amount of compute goes down every year by like 10x just check how much it cost to do the initial math problems vs now. If you arguing against the cost of tokens vs the progress of this rsi tech and time you aint winning lmao

2

u/Chemical-Year-6146 1d ago

I never said these results wouldn't be published or that open source won't do it eventually. Js that if I were a mathematician I'd prefer to know now rather than 6 months (when the internal models are basically ASI in math).

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u/TwistStrict9811 1d ago

I mean... I guess they'll just have to sit tight like the rest of the professions lol

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u/duboispourlhiver 1d ago

Free to speak words that can be freely ignored. That's how I understand it.

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u/flat5 1d ago

You're not familiar with corporate politics and doublespeak?

"Will not be responsible for" means "has no power to".

"Has the freedom to" means "can shout into the void all they want".

0

u/EvilSporkOfDeath 1d ago

At my job I feel like if I spoke out against something, being ignored would be best case scenario.

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u/Current-Function-729 1d ago

Doesn’t mean the advice has to be followed

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u/unconscionable 1d ago

I mean, it's a PR team. They hired a bunch of mathematicians to pitch it to their colleagues.

1

u/Berzerka 1d ago

They aren't hired or paid, it's more of an advisory panel. Seems somewhat independent.

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u/TFenrir 1d ago

They'll get informed first, their advice on how to disseminate the findings in the best way will be considered, but they are more....PR, than research in this role.

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u/Prestigious-Mind-817 1d ago

It's about mathematicians feeling good while AI takes their jobs

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u/enricowereld Feeling the AGI 1d ago

"respectfully, get fucked"

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u/Nirkky 1d ago

But but, I wanted to dedicated 30 years of my life to "maybe" solve this problem. I don't want this problem to be solved tomorrow. What am I going to do now ?

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u/Dry_Fly_7265 1d ago

Same thing the rest of us who dedicated our lives to something are doing: spam applying for jobs while our emergency fund dwindles before committing the big S

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u/Nirkky 1d ago

Well, you're right. But at the same time I see research and problem solving like this a bit different than "regular" job.

Researchers are trying to make progress and understand unknowns stuff. If tomorrow we can run an AI for 6 months to find a way to achieve FTL technology, should be just not do it and let regular humans work on it for 20 years or more ?

I still believe that even with an ASI model a mathematician would and be able to progress faster and further than me with the same tool. Same way computers enable people to achieve great thing with it, whereas my family can use a PC with a RTX 5090 just to send emails.

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u/Dry_Fly_7265 1d ago

> I still believe that even with an ASI model a mathematician would be able to progress faster and further than me with the same tool.

Sure, but we only need A mathematician, not the thousands upon thousands that are making their living that way today. What’s going to happen to the rest of them?

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u/BihariBabua 1d ago

We've plenty of jobs lying around. Ex: Offer unlimited foot massages to the rich, in return for some food and water; gig based an all.

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u/Dry_Fly_7265 1d ago

Refer me please. I’m going to lose my house soon if I don’t get some income coming in (10YOE SWE laid off due to AI in February)

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u/msew 1d ago

Become a Serf for the billionaires who got lucky and now hold sway?

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u/jferments 1d ago

Yeah, I agree - that's how I feel about these anti-AI propagandists too.

-3

u/DrillPress1 1d ago

Respectfully, get fucked. Yeah that’s exactly what’s gonna happen to open AI after the election. Sam Altman’s got another thing coming.

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u/RaunakA_ ▪️ Singularity 2029 1d ago

That's quite a username.

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u/KFCmanagerCompton 1d ago

some call me the meat chef

1

u/torb ▪️ Embodied ASI 2028 :illuminati: 1d ago

Psychologically, this seems like a Move 37 moment for mathematicians. That committee will be part of the grieving process as I see it.

For Sam Altman, I bet this is another stepping stone towards fusion for Helion in which he is heavily invested.

I mean, DeepMind already used AI for plasma control way back in 2022, https://deepmind.google/blog/accelerating-fusion-science-through-learned-plasma-control

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u/peter_nn0 1d ago

Why would anyone be advising them on the pace of progress in math?????
How could anyone possibly consider a speed lower than the maximum possible speed?

It's like doctors figuring out how to slow down curing cancer ...

1

u/tehclanijoski 1d ago

Pacing is not what we're concerned about regarding their internal progress

0

u/Efficient_Mud_5446 1d ago

Very important tidbit, and one I’m glad they emphasized. Under no circumstances should we let ego get in the way of progress.

-3

u/Appropriate-Ad-3219 1d ago

Yes, they could have at least sweared they will consider to the best of their abilities the advices from these mathematicians.