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PaperclipPerfector  14hr ago (text post)   2215 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026

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Looks like we're getting another big load of solutions soon from OpenAI, this time at least with more consideration for human mathematicians https://openai.com/index/advisory-group-on-mathematics-and-ai/ :

On August 28, we began training a new internal model. In addition to resolving the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize problem⁠, this model has now resolved more than 100 long-standing open problems across most areas of mathematics. The pace of its progress⁠ in mathematics has surprised the mathematicians within OpenAI. This has led to internal discussions on the best way to inform the community of the rapid progress to prepare and adapt the field.

Exciting times, as they say. Their new group:

The group will operate independently from OpenAI. The group will have the freedom to offer advice we have not requested, comment on OpenAI’s impact on mathematics, and make its advice public. Its value depends on its members being able to exercise their own judgement and challenge ours. Its members will not be paid by OpenAI, and the group can change its membership as it sees fit. Importantly, the group will not be responsible for advising us on how to pace our internal progress on mathematics.

Working with this group is a first step. There are difficult questions ahead about how AI can support mathematical understanding and how the benefits of these capabilities can reach the wider community. We want mathematicians to be at the center of shaping the answers.

Initial Members of the Advisory Group on Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence⁠, hosted at the Institute for Advanced Study:

François Charles (ENS-PSL)

Camillo De Lellis (IAS, GSSI)

Timothy Gowers (Collège de France, Cambridge)

Martin Hairer (EPFL, Imperial College London)

Nikhil Srivastava (Berkeley, Simons Institue)

Ulrike Tillmann (Oxford, INI)

Ravi Vakil (Stanford)

Edward Witten (IAS)

Melanie Matchett Wood (Harvard)

As an ex-mathematician who now works in a field with no time for sentimentality (if it works, we use it, if it doesn't, we throw it out) I'm quite happy to see AI push the boundaries of the field. My mathematician friends are understandably more reserved about things, but apart from those who literally wanted to just be an academic they're all at least somewhat interested. Equally though another part of me is quite pissed off that we now have a gaggle of commissaries who decide on when and how the top labs will be doling out crumbs of mathematical insight to the general public. This kind of crap, if anything, is what leads to the creation of the "permanent underclass", to use a phrase that is currently a la mode with the AI types. What next, a committee for AI and law? A committee for AI and medicine? A committee for AI and finance (I shudder)???

Importantly, the group will not be responsible for advising us on how to pace our internal progress on mathematics.

Sigh. We still get the end times, but only the blessed get to see exciting mathematical results in the meantime. Worst of all worlds. I guess at least mathematicians' egos get to be protected.

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