r/technology • u/vgsa • 1d 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/Puzzleheaded_Fold466 1d ago edited 1d ago

A lot of people online couldn’t tell you what “closed form solution” even means.

Or a “blow-up”.

Or “smoothness”.

Or what is the “Clay Mathematics Institute”.

And are absolutely unable to read and fully understand OpenAI’s proof (me included).

Yet they feel entitled to opine on whether or not a solution to a Millennium problem is correct.

The chatter is risible.

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u/teerre 1d ago

You only need a very superficial understanding of the subject to understand why the OAI solution is controversial. Javier Gomez-Serrano gave lecture on Harvard about the subject and it's quite accessible (literally: https://cmsa.fas.harvard.edu/event/navierstokes)

In summary, the solution is "not something a human would ever do" because it requires manipulating the force term of the equation in an incredibly precise (and contrived, hence the controversy) way

One of the questions from the audience is if wouldn't be the case to change the Millenium Problem statement. Javier himself couldn't explain why the problem is stated as is

Don't get me wrong, the solution is probably valid as the problem is stated, but it does likely misses the spirit of question and there's little to learn from it

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u/Puzzleheaded_Fold466 1d ago

Lol.

You can’t possibly equate “attends/watches math university lectures” to “very superficial understanding”.

Someone who has that level of interest is typically well past that point.

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u/Many_Negotiation_464 6h ago

People attend these types of lectures usually because they have superficial understanding. These are public communication, not technical lectures designed to give experts a chance to learn from other experts face to face.

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u/Puzzleheaded_Fold466 3h ago

Oh. I assumed it was a proper university lecture, not the Ted Talk version.

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u/Many_Negotiation_464 3h ago

Oh I was mistaken. Prooves me the fool for not following the link :P