Mathematicians' AHM urges boycott of OpenAI after 722 AI math manuscripts
On October 6 OpenAI published roughly 722 manuscripts, grouped into 372 "result families," claiming most came from a single internal model; it tested about 8,000 open problems with roughly 5% success and about three hours of ChatGPT Pro-level compute per problem. The Association for Human Mathematicians (AHM), chaired by Fields Medalist Terence Tao, responded that dumping 700-plus files at once is "not a demonstration of scholarship, but a demonstration of power," and urged mathematicians to stop collaborating with OpenAI; Scott Aaronson called it a "Mathocalypse." Three manuscripts have since been retracted, one reportedly for a sign error, with two others depending on it.
It turns the tension between mass AI-produced mathematics and the field's ability to verify and understand results into an open fight over research norms.
Fields Medalist Terence Tao, who chairs the group, shared the statement as a guest post on his blog, while also outlining a "Math 2.0" era on Mastodon in which solving problems should no longer be the main focus of the discipline. Complexity theorist Scott Aaronson described the situation as a "Mathocalypse" on his blog.
The AHM statement escalates a months-long debate. OpenAI had already caused a stir by claiming an internal model solved more than 100 open math problems in a single month, including an approach to the Navier-Stokes Millennium Problem. In response to growing criticism, OpenAI set up the advisory group AGMAI at the Institute for Advanced Study, though the group explicitly has no say over the pace of the company's internal research.
AHM sees the release as a show of force
The AHM says OpenAI has already ignored the central premise of AGMAI's advice, which held that advanced math problems shouldn't be tested on internal models. "Mathematicians did not ask for this work to be done," the statement reads, describing the release of more than 700 files at once as "not a demonstration of scholarship, but a demonstration of power."
#OpenAI#Association for Human Mathematicians#AGMAI#Institute for Advanced Study#Anthropic#ChatGPT Pro#Lean#GitHub