OpenAI's blow to mathematicians: They have annihilated my field of research
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lemonde.fr
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1. Not train models to get better on certain verifiable tasks like math proofs?
2. Train models to get better, produce groundbreaking proofs and keep the results private?
3. ?
The vast majority of the results they have released so far have no practical value beyond marketing. And that marketing aspect didn't work too well, because they didn't understand the target audience.
1. OpenAI do model training on verifiable tasks that push the boundaries.
2. The work from the previous step produces groundbreaking results.
3. OpenAI can keep the unpolished results private, publish them or branch off a mathematics research arm which produces human-level quality of output. I think they should be free to not do that last one.
And it's been less than a month, it would be shocking for any of it to have practical value, even when we take into account the fact that most new mathematical proofs have no practical value whatsoever for a very long time. Take the previous few hundred proofs produced by humans recently and show me their practical value.
The novel thing is the production of proofs in a way that isn't coupled with the simultaneous expansion of human understanding. Mathematicians are massively affected in how they work and what their careers will look like but they're not victims that OpenAI has somehow maliciously targeted like some of the discourse seem to imply.
I've heard claims that OpenAI has spent hundreds of millions in pure mathematics research this year. It's difficult to understand what they are trying to achieve. They can't possibly expect results with sufficient practival value in the timescale the company cares about. And it doesn't work as a marketing campaign, as they failed the marketing part, either due to ignorance or arrogance.