OpenAI forms math advisory group after 100+ problems solved

OpenAI announced Monday the formation of an independent advisory group hosted at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. The group, called the Advisory Group on Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence, is meant to give mathematicians more input into the company’s math-oriented research. “This group will serve as a bridge to the mathematical community and broader public, giving mathematicians a voice in how we move forward,” OpenAI said in a blog post announcing the group.

The announcement follows the abrupt publication of a solution to the Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize problem. Alongside the new group, OpenAI also claims that the same internal model has resolved more than 100 additional open problems across most areas of mathematics.

Many prominent mathematicians have taken issue with the frenzied pace of those results. 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.

True to its name, OpenAI’s new group will mostly serve in an advisory capacity, assessing the significance of new results and coordinating their release. Members won’t be paid, but they can offer unsolicited advice, go public with their views, and control their own membership, giving them a measure of independence from the company. The group, however, won’t have the leeway to slow down or redirect OpenAI’s ongoing mathematical research — as OpenAI put it in its announcement, the group won’t be responsible for advising the company on how to pace its internal progress on mathematics.

The Institute for Advanced Study emphasized this same point in its own announcement, noting that while it will offer advice, it holds no decision-making power at any AI company, and that responsibility for a company’s decisions rests with that company. Nine prominent mathematicians have been named as initial members of the group. Notably, only one of them — IAS’s Camillo De Lellis — also signed the Fields Medalists’ letter.

Why it matters

The group gives OpenAI a credible-sounding check on its math claims without ceding any control over research pace — a distinction that matters given how directly Fields Medalists have challenged the company’s rapid-fire announcements of solved problems.