The Association for Human Mathematics is calling for a boycott of OpenAI after the company published hundreds of AI-generated mathematical manuscripts. The group accuses OpenAI of violating scientific research norms by releasing dense and oddly written papers that are difficult or impossible for leading experts to decipher. This development escalates a months-long debate following OpenAI's claims that an internal model solved over 100 open math problems in a single month, including an approach to the Navier-Stokes Millennium Problem.
The Association for Human Mathematics, chaired by Fields Medalist Terence Tao, argues that OpenAI's release of more than 700 files at once is a demonstration of power rather than scholarship. The statement also references ongoing copyright lawsuits against OpenAI, suggesting the company trained its systems on mathematicians' work. Complexity theorist Scott Aaronson described the situation as a mathocalypse, contrasting OpenAI's raw batch releases with Anthropic's collaborative approach of partnering with researchers to produce human-readable proofs.
This backlash highlights a growing tension between the AI industry's push to mass-produce solved problems and the mathematical community's emphasis on conceptual understanding and verification. Tao and other prominent mathematicians warn that rapid, unverified AI outputs threaten scientific norms and create severe attribution concerns. Why it matters: The dispute forces the scientific community to confront whether mathematical problems can be considered solved before their proofs are independently verified and understood by humans.