OpenAI released over 700 AI-generated mathematical papers, sparking calls for a boycott from the Association for Human Mathematics. The Association for Human Mathematics (AHM) accuses OpenAI of violating core norms of scientific research by publishing the AI proofs and is urging mathematicians to stop working with the company.
The AHM statement escalates a months-long debate. OpenAI had already caused a stir by claiming an internal model solved more than 100 open math problems in a single month, including an approach to the Navier-Stokes Millennium Problem.
"Mathematicians did not ask for this work to be done," the statement reads, describing the release of more than 700 files at once as "not a demonstration of scholarship, but a demonstration of power." The statement's opening paragraph also brings up the many copyright lawsuits OpenAI is fighting around the world, suggesting without saying so directly that the company could only achieve these results because it trained on mathematicians' work, whether legally or not.
"Math is cracking open math problems faster than anyone can verify the results," said Fields Medalist Terence Tao, who chairs the group. Tao previously joined 24 other Fields Medalists, including Peter Scholze, Maryna Viazovska, and Martin Hairer, in signing a statement warning of a "severe misalignment" between the AI industry's goals and those of mathematics.
Mathematicians disagree over whether a boycott will help. Comments on Tao's blog post show how divided the field is. Several commenters back the boycott and propose that researchers stop using OpenAI products while also calling for better protection of preprint servers like arXiv against mass collection of training data.
Source: thedecoder