This opinion piece argues OpenAI is justified in publishing its AI-generated mathematical results through its own channels rather than traditional peer review, and that mathematicians' complaints stem from self-preservation rather than academic integrity concerns.
It would be improper of OpenAI to keep the results of its internal models to itself. OpenAI, strictly speaking, has no direct obligation to slow down the development and testing of its models in order to wait for feedback from mathematicians. By publishing the results in its own internal announcements, tweets, GitHub repositories, etc. OpenAI is opting for an explicit and deliberate divergence from the typical peer review digestion and vetting process. This last part is super important folks. Mathematicians and other academics are complaining that OpenAI is skipping peer review. Meanwhile, OpenAI is deliberate NOT submitted AI-generated results to STEM journals. By making that decision, OpenAI is basically saying, "These are the results of our models. Take them or leave them. We don't care." The fact that this has been disruptive to mathematics is no fault of OpenAI. The academic community has the choice to simply ignore OpenAI's publications, citing improper review, but they aren't. The fact is, the results are disruptive because: (1) They are published and (2) They are valuable/significant Mathematicians are thus mad because: (1) Their egos are hurt (2) They are afraid (3) They are overwhelmed While I think it's kind of OpenAI to assist with the "overwhelmed" part - with their offers to help fund workshops and digestions of the published work - OpenAI has no strict obligation to do this. And I think to claim otherwise is nonsensical. The demands of mathematicians concerning this topic have been asinine, even if well-meaning. Mathematicians' demands of OpenAI have been more about self-preservation than academic integrity. OpenAI is already submitting to separate channels. There is no real academic integrity debate, other than perhaps accidental plagiarism (or possibly, potentially incidental more than accidental, I guess we'll find out).
The article raises concerns about researchers' trust in OpenAI regarding the handling of unpublished mathematical work, potentially impacting collaborations and data sharing in the AI community.
A commentary discussing the mathematician backlash against OpenAI's released AI-generated mathematical proofs, arguing the real issue is not lack of human credit but the lack of comprehensibility — models only close proofs without conveying understanding needed to advance mathematics.
WIRED reports that mathematicians are frustrated with OpenAI's plan to release hundreds of AI-generated solutions to longstanding open problems on GitHub, ignoring advice to publish papers and preserve traditional scientific attribution and credit processes.
The article provides recommendations for AI labs on responsible release of AI-generated mathematical results, emphasizing the need for human understanding and community-led verification.