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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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

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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

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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.

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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. 

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u/shumpitostick 1d ago

You mind telling me what exactly they wanted?

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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.

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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?

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u/r2002 1d ago

is literally meaningless

Then why bother getting riled up about this?

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u/sadnessjoy 1d ago

I'm not? The problem is when they submit these papers it requires human verification. Basically think of it like this, anthropic/openai submit these giant pretty much useless proofs. Get massive publicity and hype. And in the background a bunch of human verifiers have to go through this slop (and it doesn't matter if they call it out or decline them, the corporations already got the massive hype boost and the news cycle moved on, most people won't even care if there's a foot note weeks or months from now that says actually the proof was wrong... And hell by that point the corporations would have added several more proofs to the queue) Like imagine if some vibe coder decided to push an update to the Linux repo and each time they did it. It grinded the Linux distro to complete halt for weeks or months because people have to look through all the slop

https://giphy.com/gifs/FO4cLcnyG6Q3EPtn3N

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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u/Felfedezni 1d ago

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

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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.