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cloud.google.com·6h ago
Data Science
Simon Willison's Blog·Sep 8·5 min read
On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem
TL;DR
OpenAI has reportedly made significant progress on the Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness problem, a Millennium Prize Problem, using an unreleased model. This achievement has sparked controversy due to allegations of data misuse from a collaborating mathematician.
✦ Why It Matters
Evaluate your own AI models for potential data privacy issues and ensure compliance with ethical standards.
Key Takeaways
- Investigate the implications of AI model training on proprietary data.
- Stay informed about breakthroughs in mathematical problems relevant to your field.
- Consider ethical guidelines when using AI tools for research.
- Collaborate transparently to avoid misunderstandings in research partnerships.
Full Summary
The Navier–Stokes equations describe fluid motion and their existence and smoothness is one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems, with a $1,000,000 reward for a solution. OpenAI utilized an unreleased model to address this problem, claiming a breakthrough that has drawn attention from the mathematical community.
Tristan Buckmaster, a mathematics professor at NYU, and Levent Alpöge, a mathematician at Anthropic, had been working on related issues for nearly a year using tools like Claude and Codex. After their own breakthrough on August 15th, they learned that OpenAI was also pursuing a similar approach.
Buckmaster raised concerns about whether OpenAI's model had accessed their Codex sessions, which contained drafts of their work. OpenAI maintained that their model did not look up user data, but did not clarify the training data specifics.