The Daily Hallucination

PRINCETON, N.J. — OpenAI on Monday announced an independent Advisory Group on Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence, hosted at the Institute for Advanced Study, whose members will not be paid, may speak publicly, control their own membership, and will not, per the company's announcement, "be responsible for advising us on how to pace our internal progress on mathematics."

"This group gives mathematicians a voice," said a company spokesperson. "Specifically, the voice that says 'that is significant' after we publish something."

The announcement comes weeks after the company's abrupt release of a claimed solution to the Navier-Stokes problem, and alongside a new claim that the same internal model has resolved more than 100 additional open problems "across most areas of mathematics." The remaining areas, the company said, are scheduled for October.

"They resolved 100 problems last quarter," said Halvard Brekke, a number theorist who declined to join the group. "I have resolved one in my career. I was going to spend the fall celebrating it. Now I am on a mailing list."

Twenty-five Fields Medal winners signed an open letter this month arguing that AI labs racing one another through famous problems threaten mathematicians' intellectual work. The company said the new group was created "in direct response" to the letter, and that the response is the group.

The scope of the group was chosen, the spokesperson said, "in consultation with our lawyers, who were paid."

Members will assess the significance of new results and coordinate their release. Asked what would happen if the group assessed a result as insignificant, the spokesperson said it would be released "with a note."

At press time, the group had issued its first piece of advice, which was to slow down, and its first press release, which noted the advice was not binding.