Twenty-five leading mathematicians, each a recipient of the prestigious Fields Medal, have signed an open letter stating that AI labs are threatening their intellectual work. They argue that AI companies are seeking to outdo each other by rapidly finding solutions to famous mathematical problems.
This week, NYU professor Tristan Buckmaster accused OpenAI of pressuring him to withhold credit from a collaborator who works for Anthropic regarding a math problem solution. He also questioned if OpenAI used their work with Codex to produce its own proof.
OpenAI withdrew its sponsorship of a math event at CalTech on Thursday after facing criticism from researchers at the university. The signatories of the letter suggest that while AI's ability to solve mathematical challenges could benefit humanity, this will only be true if solutions are understandable and communicable by the math community.
The mathematicians wrote that solutions are "announced in a rush, leaving no time for a proper writeup, the isolation of new methods and ideas, and citing relevant previous work of others." They added that this raises "severe attribution and plagiarism questions." There is concern that the culture of open research could be threatened, potentially incentivising secrecy among frontier labs.