OpenAI forms math advisory group after Navier-Stokes breakthrough

OpenAI's move follows the abrupt publication of a solution to the Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize problem, and the company's claim that the same internal model resolved more than 100 additional open problems across most areas of mathematics. That speed has unsettled parts of the mathematics community: earlier this month, 25 Fields Medal-winning mathematicians signed an open letter arguing that AI labs are threatening their intellectual work as they seek to one-up each other with solutions to famous math problems.

The new group, hosted at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, is designed to give mathematicians input into OpenAI's math-oriented research. Members won't be paid, but they can offer unsolicited advice, go public with their views, and control their own membership. That gives them some independence from the company. Yet OpenAI says the group won't be responsible for advising on how to pace internal progress, and the institute itself says it has no decision-making power at any AI company.

The nine initial members include only one signatory of the Fields Medalists' letter, IAS's Camillo De Lellis, so the group's credibility with the letter's wider group of critics may hinge on whether it can influence how results are assessed and released, rather than on its formal authority.