Timothy Gowers

First up today in the big model news, OpenAI.

OpenAI has formed an advisory group on mathematics and AI, nine mathematicians including Terence Tao, Edward Witten, and Timothy Gowers, to help decide how to release a batch of results its internal model produced.

The move follows a declaration signed by 25 Fields Medalists, led by Tao, accusing labs of treating open problems as marketing benchmarks after OpenAI's disputed Navier-Stokes solve.

The board only advises, it has no control over OpenAI's research pace or publication timing, and no independent evaluator checks its proofs the way outside benchmarks check model claims.

Para conocer qué facultades tiene realmente ese grupo y cuáles no, le paso la palabra a Ámbar.

El panel incluye figuras de la talla de medallistas Fields, Timothy Gowers, Martin Hairer, Edward Witten, entre otros.

Pero el Institute se cuidó de aclarar que el grupo solo asesora, no decide.

OpenAI conserva el control total sobre el ritmo de su investigación.

That necessity brings us to the cultural and safety implications.

Fields modelist Tim Gowers openly declined to endorse a recent petition among mathematicians warning that autonomous AI proofs diminish the intrinsic human value of mathematical exploration.

That debate is no longer speculative.

It is an active disruption inside elite academic disciplines.

That I think is from Scott Aronson.

Then we have another post, from Tim Gowers.

Tim Gowers is a Fields medalist from the UK.

He assisted, opening eye on a bunch of, I think one of their math benchmarks he was assisting, but he's never been paid by them.

Him and about 30 or 40 other people wrote a letter to the UK Academy and they said, look, we are very scared.

Okay, yes, AI solved several previously unsolved mathematic problems in recent years, marking a significant advancement in the field.

Okay, so OpenAI solved an 80-year-old problem known as Erdős problem with mathematician Tim Gowers noting that no previously AI-generated proof had come close to meeting such high standards of mathematical elegance and rigor.

Okay, so there's a, uh...

In 2026, GPT 5.4 Pro cracked a conjecture in number theory that has stumped generations of mathematicians.

He's done a lot of work on AI and mathematics, and there's a lot of Other famous mathematicians doing that work.

Timothy Gowers, another fields mathematician, is also working on that.

So yeah, there's definitely interest there.

Well, fascinating conversation today, Luis.

Human mathematicians at all levels of the profession are reeling from the implications.

Tim Gowers, a professor at the University of Cambridge who helped verify one of OpenAI's proofs, has written that even if AI models fail to progress further, quote, we have still probably entered an era where it would become very difficult for humans to compete with AI at solving mathematical problems, unquote.

This is a startling assessment and a marketing coup for the likes of OpenAI.

Quote, mathematicians actually have a special role in this, said Joshua Grochow, an associate professor in computer science and, brackets, by courtesy, mathematics at the University of Colorado Boulder.