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Person

Andrew Sutherland

Mathematician based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Known aliases

  • Drew Sutherland

Current stories

leadershipConfirmed3 publishers

OpenAI's 372 math results outrun the people who must check them

OpenAI published 372 families of math results from an unreleased model on Oct. 6, more than mathematicians have yet been able to check or understand. Each claim now waits on human readers, who must work without the prompts OpenAI chose not to publish.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 32%
Operator
Operator 38%
Investor
Investor 30%

Reality

Evidence50
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+45
Incentives65
Confidence60
scienceConfirmed5 publishers

Mathematicians face months of reading to judge whether OpenAI's hundreds of proofs contain new ideas

OpenAI released hundreds of results on open problems in math and theoretical computer science, many already verified in the Lean programming language. Those are all but certain to be correct, so the months of reading ahead are about whether they hold new ideas.

Publishers:nature.com newscientist.com phys.org retractionwatch.com scientificamerican.com

Perspective Coverage

5 publishers
Builder
Builder 33%
Operator
Operator 55%
Investor
Investor 12%

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+35
Incentives70
Confidence60
productConfirmed10 publishers

Lean files let mathematicians machine-check part of OpenAI's 722 AI-written math manuscripts

OpenAI posted 722 model-written math manuscripts in 372 families on GitHub, many with Lean proofs a computer can check. A mathematician citing one has to learn first whether it is a checked proof or a paper still waiting for review.

Perspective Coverage

10 publishers
Builder
Builder 40%
Operator
Operator 27%
Investor
Investor 33%

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+45
Incentives70
Confidence60
scienceOne report1 publisher

Epoch AI enlists mathematicians to pick 50 open problems a computer can check

Epoch AI, which benchmarks AI systems, had mathematicians nominate 50 high-stakes open problems chosen so a computer can check any proposed solution. The rule lets research mathematics be graded as a test of AI, but only problems whose answers a machine can confirm get in.

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+25
Incentives60
Confidence40
scienceOne report1 publisher

Terence Tao names AI's arrival in math research a crisis in the field's values

Scientific American's account from the mathematicians' congress in Philadelphia has a Fields medalist quitting for OpenAI and a Millennium Prize problem falling to an opaque mix of models, with no verification trail reported for either.

Reality

Evidence30
Adoption35
Hype gap+45
Incentives65
Confidence35