The release by OpenAI on October 6 of over 700 research papers was a watershed in the history of mathematics. AI is now undeniably capable of making groundbreaking contributions across many areas of mathematics. So why are some mathematicians so unhappy?
Some of it is the apparent disregard by AI companies for the practice of mathematics. The OpenAI papers — despite some tremendous ideas — are atrociously written and violate our community expectations of attribution. Some of them are even wrong. We have much more control over how we hire mathematicians, publish papers, and train students than over the behavior of trillion-dollar companies, and that is where our efforts would be better spent.
Not a single one of the major open problems I have publicly mentioned throughout my career (whether in a talk, a lecture, an article, or even a grant proposal) was left untouched by the announcement. Everything has been claimed to be proved.
