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Relevant, but it's already rumored that OpenAI and Anthropic have made very significant progress on two more Millennium Prize problems. They're in a race to sol

Relevant, but it's already rumored that OpenAI and Anthropic have made very significant progress on two more Millennium Prize problems. They're in a race to solve the next problem. OpenAI needs to solve another to shut down the (baseless) plagiarism allegations. Anthropic wants blood because OpenAI sniped the last one from one of Anthropic's researchers. It's a matter of pride for both companies. More results will come out soon.

HarHarVeryFunny 4d ago
Given that the math community (incl. those 25 Fields medalists) has come out strongly against this trophy hunting of their unsolved problems, to the detriment of mathematics, I don't think these companies are going to be getting positive press if they ignore this plea and continue with this, nor is this going to help turn public sentiment pro-AI. Presumably the people that OpenAI and Anthropic are trying to impress with these trophy kills are potential IPO investors, but I would have thought investors would also be concerned about the growing public backlash against AI.
- famouswaffles 4d ago
  They aren't going to sit on millenium solutions regardless (so if Hodge and /or BSD is really done it will get announced especially because of the baseless accusations), and they aren't going to stop trying to solve P/NP and Riemann. The letter doesn't really matter. It's not the first time, and I don't think AI's dramatic ramp in capabilities ever had positive reception from the bulk of mathematicians anyway.
  - HarHarVeryFunny 4d ago
    Yeah, I don't expect them to stop, but I do think they are probably hurting themselves, as well as mathematics, by continuing do to this. Imagine if they had handled this differently and these results - still using OpenAI models - were coming from the math community. How much better the PR would have been - AI helping math/science rather than yet another story of AI harming society in some way. No doubt this is what they were at least partially aiming for - not just shooting a trophy animal to brag about, but also being seen to advance math/science, a la AlphaFold, not just take all our jobs and enshittify society with deep fakes and AI slop. But, they heavily misjudged.
    - famouswaffles 4d ago
      If you're in OpenAI's position, the PR from the group you're disrupting is rarely relevant. People from the outside will (correctly or not) look at this as "Mathematicians don't want OpenAI to solve problems to keep their status/jobs", and you'll have as much sympathy from them as every other replaced profession in human history - very little to none. Unlike AlphaFold, this technology has the potential to wholesale replace the entire profession. You're never going to get anything more than bad PR from that group as the threat looms. Over 3 Billion images gets generated per week via OpenAI chatgpt image models. None of the poor PR from artists on AI generated images even remotely matters.
      - HarHarVeryFunny 4d ago
        Most research mathematicians are employed as academics, and it's hard to see universities replacing teaching staff with AI even if that were possible. IMO giving a hypothetical AlphaMath to mathematicians, the same way Google gave AlphaFold to research chemists/biologists, would have resulted in far better PR, and the profit opportunity of attempting to replace the jobs of either research group is minimal. It's downright bizarre the way companies like Anthropic (primarily), and to a lesser extent OpenAI and anyone else, are themselves pushing the narrative of this tech may kill you, will take all your jobs, etc. That may all happen, unfortunately, but being aware of that possibility you'd think these companies would be a bit more mindful of their messaging and behavior, not just go out with a scorched earth approach of "well, they are going to hate us anyway".
        famouswaffles 4d ago
        >Most research mathematicians are employed as academics, and it's hard to see universities replacing teaching staff with AI even if that were possible. If universities come to only need research mathematicians for teaching ability, then it would still gut the profession. You would presumably need far fewer of them for their research ability, and hopefully hire more people who can actually teach. It's strange that you don't see that as a threat to the profession. Lots of research mathematicians would lose their jobs even in this scenario. >IMO giving a hypothetical AlphaMath to mathematicians, the same way Google gave AlphaFold to research chemists/biologists, would have resulted in far better PR GPT-N isn't AlphaFold. I'm telling you AlphaFold is a bad analogy! AlphaFold has superhuman capabilities at one specialized subproblem - protein-structure prediction - embedded in a much larger biology/drug discovery pipeline. It doesn't replace the biologist or drug researcher, it just gives them a better instrument, and if you're not in the relevant professions it's essentially useless to you. GPT-N is general purpose intelligence machine that can increasingly do chunks of work you would otherwise employ the mathematician or software developer to do. Shanmu Jin is a perfect demonstration. A neurosurgery resident, not a research mathematician, who encountered the Crouzeix conjecture through his transcranial ultrasound research and used GPT-5.6 Sol to solve it (20+ year old longstanding problem). In the AlphaFold story, the biologist gets a powerful new tool. In the Jin story, someone who isn't a mathematician can obtain research level mathematics and incorporate it into their research/code/business whatever without talking to a single human. You're asking why they don't market GPT as "AlphaFold for Mathematicians". They don't because it's not. >It's downright bizarre the way companies like Anthropic (primarily), and to a lesser extent OpenAI and anyone else, are themselves pushing the narrative of this tech may kill you, will take all your jobs, etc. It's not that bizarre. It only seems strange if you think it's all a facade, "marketing" or whatever nonsense HN is convinced of. These are people who believe very strongly in what they are doing and in the potential of it. For these people, what you are asking them to do is actually incredibly slimy. And it might win some brownie points, but not for long.

HarHarVeryFunny 4d ago

Given that the math community (incl. those 25 Fields medalists) has come out strongly against this trophy hunting of their unsolved problems, to the detriment of mathematics, I don't think these companies are going to be getting positive press if they ignore this plea and continue with this, nor is this going to help turn public sentiment pro-AI. Presumably the people that OpenAI and Anthropic are trying to impress with these trophy kills are potential IPO investors, but I would have thought investors would also be concerned about the growing public backlash against AI.

famouswaffles 4d ago
They aren't going to sit on millenium solutions regardless (so if Hodge and /or BSD is really done it will get announced especially because of the baseless accusations), and they aren't going to stop trying to solve P/NP and Riemann. The letter doesn't really matter. It's not the first time, and I don't think AI's dramatic ramp in capabilities ever had positive reception from the bulk of mathematicians anyway.
- HarHarVeryFunny 4d ago
  Yeah, I don't expect them to stop, but I do think they are probably hurting themselves, as well as mathematics, by continuing do to this. Imagine if they had handled this differently and these results - still using OpenAI models - were coming from the math community. How much better the PR would have been - AI helping math/science rather than yet another story of AI harming society in some way. No doubt this is what they were at least partially aiming for - not just shooting a trophy animal to brag about, but also being seen to advance math/science, a la AlphaFold, not just take all our jobs and enshittify society with deep fakes and AI slop. But, they heavily misjudged.
  - famouswaffles 4d ago
    If you're in OpenAI's position, the PR from the group you're disrupting is rarely relevant. People from the outside will (correctly or not) look at this as "Mathematicians don't want OpenAI to solve problems to keep their status/jobs", and you'll have as much sympathy from them as every other replaced profession in human history - very little to none. Unlike AlphaFold, this technology has the potential to wholesale replace the entire profession. You're never going to get anything more than bad PR from that group as the threat looms. Over 3 Billion images gets generated per week via OpenAI chatgpt image models. None of the poor PR from artists on AI generated images even remotely matters.
    - HarHarVeryFunny 4d ago
      Most research mathematicians are employed as academics, and it's hard to see universities replacing teaching staff with AI even if that were possible. IMO giving a hypothetical AlphaMath to mathematicians, the same way Google gave AlphaFold to research chemists/biologists, would have resulted in far better PR, and the profit opportunity of attempting to replace the jobs of either research group is minimal. It's downright bizarre the way companies like Anthropic (primarily), and to a lesser extent OpenAI and anyone else, are themselves pushing the narrative of this tech may kill you, will take all your jobs, etc. That may all happen, unfortunately, but being aware of that possibility you'd think these companies would be a bit more mindful of their messaging and behavior, not just go out with a scorched earth approach of "well, they are going to hate us anyway".
      - famouswaffles 4d ago
        >Most research mathematicians are employed as academics, and it's hard to see universities replacing teaching staff with AI even if that were possible. If universities come to only need research mathematicians for teaching ability, then it would still gut the profession. You would presumably need far fewer of them for their research ability, and hopefully hire more people who can actually teach. It's strange that you don't see that as a threat to the profession. Lots of research mathematicians would lose their jobs even in this scenario. >IMO giving a hypothetical AlphaMath to mathematicians, the same way Google gave AlphaFold to research chemists/biologists, would have resulted in far better PR GPT-N isn't AlphaFold. I'm telling you AlphaFold is a bad analogy! AlphaFold has superhuman capabilities at one specialized subproblem - protein-structure prediction - embedded in a much larger biology/drug discovery pipeline. It doesn't replace the biologist or drug researcher, it just gives them a better instrument, and if you're not in the relevant professions it's essentially useless to you. GPT-N is general purpose intelligence machine that can increasingly do chunks of work you would otherwise employ the mathematician or software developer to do. Shanmu Jin is a perfect demonstration. A neurosurgery resident, not a research mathematician, who encountered the Crouzeix conjecture through his transcranial ultrasound research and used GPT-5.6 Sol to solve it (20+ year old longstanding problem). In the AlphaFold story, the biologist gets a powerful new tool. In the Jin story, someone who isn't a mathematician can obtain research level mathematics and incorporate it into their research/code/business whatever without talking to a single human. You're asking why they don't market GPT as "AlphaFold for Mathematicians". They don't because it's not. >It's downright bizarre the way companies like Anthropic (primarily), and to a lesser extent OpenAI and anyone else, are themselves pushing the narrative of this tech may kill you, will take all your jobs, etc. It's not that bizarre. It only seems strange if you think it's all a facade, "marketing" or whatever nonsense HN is convinced of. These are people who believe very strongly in what they are doing and in the potential of it. For these people, what you are asking them to do is actually incredibly slimy. And it might win some brownie points, but not for long.