The research community is in uproar after OpenAI released a trove of more than 700 mathematical preprints entirely generated by AI on 6 October. The San Francisco, California-based maker of ChatGPT posted the preprints on the software repository Github.

Although some mathematicians celebrated the solution of longstanding problems, others took to social media to complain about being scooped. Some were incensed at what one physicist called a ‘slopocalypse’, even if the mathematical content could end up being formally correct.

  • lepinkainen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    7 days ago

    Can someone please explain to a non-mathematician what the issue is specifically?

    We all want the problems solved, right? Is there a wrong way to solve them? Or a process that people are supposed to follow not to “scoop” others? A honor system of sorts?

    If a human dropped the same 700 solutions online, would it still be bad?

    • CelloMike@lemmy.worldEnglish
      18·
      7 days ago

      There are two issues really - one is a perception that they’re not vetting any of this output, just dumping it out on the internet and expecting real mathematicians to actually check it all, so yes if a human was doing the same thing it’d probably still be suspect.

      The other is the widely held suspicion that much of the “breakthrough” mathematics here has been stolen from real researchers who’ve been using chatgpt to develop their theories by talking to it

    • zener_diode@feddit.orgEnglish
      6·
      7 days ago

      I think there are three main issues (though I might be overlooking something):

      1. AI taking over peoples work is as much an issue for mathematicians here, as it is for programers, artists, writers, etc. elsewhere.
      2. We still need to check if these 700 papers are correct (AI makes mistakes at least as often as humans, usually more often). This involves a huge amount of effort. And if it turns out that they contain a bunch of mistakes, OpenAI is unlikely to care. To them, these papers have already served their purpose (generating headlines).
      3. Solving a problem in mathematics means being able to (formally) convince other people that your opinion is correct (massively simplified, but imo that is what mathematics boils down to), by getting them to understand why your opinion is correct. Having a pile of linear algebra spit out 700 texts about certain math problems removes the whole “human understanding” part of that.

      However, it’s not entirely unprecedented for a computer to provide a proof that we don’t completely understand. I forgot the details (and I’ll edit them in if I can find it), but there was at least one problem that was solved using a computer and brute force trying millions of cases. That produces a proof much longer than any human could read in a lifetime, and iirc there where quite a few mathematicians unhappy about it at the time too.

    • Zwuzelmaus@feddit.orgEnglish
      41·
      7 days ago

      We all want the problems solved, right? Is there a wrong way to solve them?

      Science is not mainly about solving problems (that would be engineering for example).

      But more specifically to your question:

      There are many wrong ways of doing scientific work, and what current AI does is one of them: reading it all, rephrasing it all a little and then already declare everything as done & good, even when it isn’t.

      A scientist needs proof, and peer reviews, etc. before the work can be called good.

      Never forget AI isn’t creating really new things, it can only chew up and spit out what has been there before. This is especially true in science.