The Guardian view on AI v mathematicians: humans are still vital to the field, but tech firms refuse to see that | Editorial

OpenAI claims its agents have solved the Navier-Stokes problem. But questions remain about how useful and independent its work really is

On 8 September, OpenAI claimed that its AI agents had solved the Navier-Stokes problem, one of the most famous and difficult challenges in mathematics. Had a human solved it, they would have collected both prize money and plaudits from their fellows. The announcement instead ignited what some mathematicians have called an “existential crisis” in their field over the power of AI, and accusations that OpenAI misused human work.

The maths behind Navier-Stokes is difficult to understand, but the critiques levelled by mathematicians will be familiar to artists, office workers, or anyone else concerned about AI. OpenAI’s results, like any arising from a large language model, depend on digesting work by human mathematicians. The OpenAI paper cites sources, but many believe the company didn’t give sufficient credit, especially to several mathematicians believed to be very close to a solution – bad form that erases human ingenuity and hogs all the glory. The mathematician Tristan Buckmaster also has concerns that work he was doing on Navier-Stokes using OpenAI’s Codex model was seen by the OpenAI team. OpenAI has denied directly accessing this material, but could not rule out that data from Buckmaster’s use of their products “helped improve our model”.