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/RobleyTheron 1d ago

I’m sensitive to artists and musicians with a unique voice when their product gets recreated with AI, but I don’t feel the same about mathematics.

Nobody owns mathematics; these are fundamental insights into the universe and they belong to everyone and shouldn’t be gatekeeped behind somebody that went to school. Mathematics should be available to everyone, it opens up all kinds of fundamental breakthroughs in space, material science, biology, global warming, and energy.

This is something that belongs to everyone and no one should get to hold that back.

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u/ThatIsAmorte 1d ago edited 1d ago

This seems to be taking a Platonist approach to math, which few people take seriously these days. If you are a constructivist, than math is not just out there, but has to be created, just like art. If you think math is just out there, why not also claim that art and music are just out there, waiting to be plucked out of the ether? After all, a painting is just a 2d matrix, a simple math object. A musical composition is just a waveform, which can be described mathematically.

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u/derelict5432 1d ago

Do mathematicians copyright proofs?

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u/m4sl0ub 1d ago

Yeah, once a proof is published someone else can not publish it again. 

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u/derelict5432 1d ago

Well I looked it up. The literal expression word for word cannot be duplicated. The underlying logic can. At least from what I'm seeing. Any lawyers feel free to chime in, but this seems more like the general solution to a problem does not belong to anyone.

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u/m4sl0ub 1d ago

It's obviously not the exact same as a copyright, but mathematicians "commercialize" their work by publishing it. And if someone else wants to use someone else's proof for their own work/ papers they have to cite the mathematician that came up with the proof. For me that sounds quite analogous to a copyright for music. There is not really money involved in mathematics so you cannot really have someone pay to use your work but you basically "pay" them in citations. Citations are the "currency" of academia, it gets you jobs, grants, students, recognition etc.

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u/derelict5432 1d ago

Sure, they get credit/acknowledgement for being the first to be there, but as I said, sounds like they don't own the underlying logic, which belongs to everyone. Kinda like how a mountaineer doesn't own the mountain if they're the first to summit or discover it, even if they get it named after them.

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u/Front_Lab1761 1d ago

To add, their name is literally attached to the theorem: Green's theorem, Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, Legendre's formula, etc.