OpenAI claims AI solved 100-plus math problems but offers no proof

OpenAI announced on September 21 that an unnamed internal model, which began training on August 28, has resolved more than 100 long-standing open problems across most areas of mathematics, including the Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize problem. The company released no proofs, no itemized list of problems, and no outside verification, leaving the entire claim resting on its word alone.chosun+1

Alongside the announcement, OpenAI revealed the formation of an Advisory Group on Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence, hosted at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, intended to review emerging mathematical results from AI systems before they are treated as settled.the-decoder+1

A Landmark Claim Without Documentation

The Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem is one of seven Millennium Prize Problems established by the Clay Mathematics Institute in 2000, each carrying a $1 million award. The equations describe fluid motion and are used daily across physics and engineering, yet their mathematical foundations remain poorly understood.npr

OpenAI first claimed on September 8 that its AI had resolved the Navier-Stokes problem in 88 hours using roughly 10,000 AI agents. The September 21 announcement expanded the scope dramatically, adding more than 100 additional solved problems and, according to The Decoder, a claimed resolution of a second Millennium Prize Problem, the Hodge conjecture.the-decoder+2

Mathematicians who have examined the earlier 166-page Navier-Stokes manuscript say its Lean formalization compiles correctly, suggesting the proof is technically valid, but the paper itself remains nearly unreadable. "The paper is not written for humans," said Javier Gómez-Serrano, a mathematician at Brown University. James Maynard of the University of Oxford added that "it's been very difficult to really extract any human understanding from this new AI proof".npr

Controversy Over the Rush to Publish

The episode has drawn sharp criticism from the mathematics community. Twenty-five Fields Medal winners, including Terence Tao and June Huh, published an open letter on September 11 titled "A Severe Misalignment of AI in Mathematics," warning that treating problem-solving as a benchmark for AI systems undermines the conceptual understanding that is central to the discipline.the-decoder+1

Tristan Buckmaster, a mathematician at New York University who had been closing in on a Navier-Stokes solution with collaborator Levent Alpöge at Anthropic, accused OpenAI of learning about their approach and racing to publish first. According to Buckmaster, OpenAI offered to put him on their paper if he dropped Alpöge. "There's so much circumstantial evidence that they had far more knowledge of what we were doing than they let on," Buckmaster told NPR. OpenAI has denied using their work.npr

An Advisory Group With Limits

The new advisory group includes nine mathematicians, among them Fields Medalists Timothy Gowers and Martin Hairer, and operates independently with no compensation from OpenAI. Members may offer unsolicited advice and publish their recommendations.mixed-news+1

However, the group carries a built-in constraint: it has no authority over how fast OpenAI pursues new findings. "Importantly, the group will not be responsible for advising us on how to pace our internal progress on mathematics," OpenAI wrote.the-decoder+1

The Clay Mathematics Institute, which has awarded only one Millennium Prize in its history, noted in a September 11 statement that its evaluation process is "deliberately unhurried," requiring publication in a qualifying journal followed by at least two years of general acceptance before any prize is considered. None of OpenAI's claimed results have been published, meaning that clock has not started.mixed-news