OpenAI has created an external advisory group to evaluate its AI-related mathematics research results and discuss how they are disclosed. The move follows concerns in the mathematics community about verification and recognition of researchers’ contributions after OpenAI said its AI solved major unsolved problems.
The group, based at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, has 9 mathematicians and will assess significance and coordinate disclosure timing and methods. Members are unpaid and independently managed.
On Sept. 8, OpenAI announced a solution to the Navier-Stokes equations problem, one of mathematics’ Millennium Prize Problems. It then claimed the same internal AI model had solved more than 100 additional unsolved problems across several areas of mathematics. However, this was OpenAI’s announcement and does not mean each solution has completed independent verification by the mathematics community.
The advisory group will not have decision-making power over OpenAI’s research pace or direction. The Institute for Advanced Study also said it provides advice but does not control OpenAI’s research decisions.
Earlier this month, twenty-five Fields Medal-winning mathematicians signed an open letter arguing that AI labs are threatening their intellectual work as they compete to solve famous math problems.