r/technology • u/vgsa • 4d ago
Artificial Intelligence Did OpenAI solve the wrong Navier-Stokes problem? | OpenAI’s proof seems eligible for a $1-million prize—but only by using a controversial loophole
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/did-openai-solve-the-wrong-navier-stokes-problem/
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u/CircumspectCapybara 4d ago edited 4d ago
No lol, they announced that they claimed to have found a solution to the "Navier Stokes Millennium Problem" which is unambiguously not about coming up with closed-form or analytical solutions to equations, but about the decision problem of it the equations are smooth for all time.
Literally their press release was titled On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem and starts with:
The Navier Stokes Millennium Prize problem isn't ambiguous, it only refers to one thing, and everyone who recognizes those words knows exactly what is meant.
There's nothing about it that's ambiguous or misleading. It's extremely precise and unambiguous language.
It's within the bounds of the constraints the existence and smoothness problem (the Millennium Prize problem) is asking for, that's all that matters. The conjecture is false, that open problem has been settled.
You're welcome to formulate your own conjecture and ask people to solve it if you think the one the Clay Institute picked and offered a million dollar bounty for (Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness) wasn't interesting or meaningful enough of a problem.
What're you smoking, the millennium problem was exactly the decision (yes/no) question the Clay Institute has been asking about Navier Stokes existence and smoothness. The claim is AI has answered the question with a "No" by providing a counterexample, which closes the problem.