N ζ

[Mark Kisin @marcusgnt]

@OpenAI Your post says 100 open problems solved, but not out of how many tried. Reporting that % is basic good scientific practice, and would do a lot to put the abilities of the models into context. If you really care about the math community, you'll take that simple step.

[N ζ @modularcurve]

@ultrono519 Nice chair

[Paul Nelson @ultrono519]

The armrests on my chair were disintegrating, so I got a new chair, which turned out not to have any armrests, but I wouldn’t have used then much, anyway

[Tony Feng @tonylfeng]

Finally, I want to call out the general behavior from OpenAI and Anthropic.

Navier–Stokes is just one more entry in a ledger of unhealthy competition between AI companies. Shortly after OpenAI unveiled the Unit Distance breakthrough, Anthropic(/Levent?) was there to match it. The day after Anthropic(/Levent?) disproved the Jacobian Conjecture, OpenAI matched them. On August 1, OpenAI rushed their release of 10 math breakthroughs because Anthropic(/Levent?) learned about the problems and started trying to scoop them. One month later, Axiom Math pounced to beat Julia Stadlmann’s recent work on prime gaps, then OpenAI rushed out a release beating Axiom Math’s bound, and within minutes Anthropic(/Levent?) was there to say they had (more or less) matched OpenAI’s bound.

As my writing suggests, it is not clear to me (nor to OpenAI, apparently) to what extent Levent’s breakthroughs are meant to represent Anthropic. Either way, Anthropic has unleashed its technology on mathematics in unruly fashion, with answers dropped (still without explanations) in cryptic tweets or mysterious database contributions, Lean proofs dangling in random github repositories, and then a couple of official press releases (one very nicely written, though also arguably a scoop; and another where the discussion of the actual mathematics is a puzzling pile of slop). OpenAI has been more coherent, but has brought brutal force for flexing its power and trading blows with its rivals.

AI companies are developing a powerful and dangerous technology, which will certainly upend the lives of many people. People are struggling to adapt their values, institutions, and sense of meaning. Amidst much anxiety about the future, frontier labs have advance access to the technology, so they lead by example. Can they please do it in a way that actually makes us optimistic about the future of humanity?

[jacob tsimerman @Jacob_Tsimerman]

I'm incredibly excited to announce the founding of the Mathematical AI safety Institute (MAISI) https://t.co/7h28dBocA6. AI safety needs more foundational theoretical development, and mathematicians have the skills and the mindset to help! MAISI is an independent institute with visiting positions ranging from 1 semester to 2 years. Our goal is to get mathematicians up to speed and working on research directions in AI safety as quickly as possible. There is important work to be done, and there is real progress to be made. YOU can help!

Applications are open now! MAISI is aiming to hire 10-30 mathematicians to join us in the Bay Area by January, and scale up to 30-100 for September 2027. If you're a mathematician interested in channeling your skills toward the most important problem of our time, please apply today! https://t.co/PTWQh0MK3T

[Paul Nelson @ultrono519]

#Stoked #Salted

[tjf @tejotaefe]

Definitely one of the best slides in the history of beamer presentations

[Jay Cummings @LongFormMath]

Historical footage of the wild party in the Princeton math department after Wiles proved Fermat’s Last Theorem

[пивной гном @annolik]

mathematicians will literally imagine a sphere transforming into two spheres of the same size instead of going to therapy