this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2026
321 points (89.1% liked)
Linux
68173 readers
1371 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 7 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Unfortunately the proof found by the LLM combines work by different teams of mathematicians that cannot individually be published as proofs. It's the equivalent of a scoop in investigation journalism by someone who was spying on journalists instead of doing any investigating. It's on lemmy/wired: https://lemmy.world/post/52843754
It's good that some do cite sources, however one major problem with generative AI is that it can produce volumes of output much faster than they can be verified. "You can always cross-check" is not viable at scale, and by the time LLM output gets cited, it becomes a quagmire potentially unlimited levels deep.
LLM output should never be treated as original until they can show their work transparently.
From what I understood from that article, OpenAI scooped the work of a couple of mathematicians (one an OpenAI employee, and both using OpenAI's tools) and claimed it as their own. Stealing others' work is not commonplace in science, but it does happen. The lesson here is to not trust OpenAI / Anthropic with your data or ideas, and to use local AI or at least less shady services. Also, the mathematicians will still get credit if they publish the findings first in a scientific journal, arXiv or conference - blogs and press releases sadly don't count in academia.
You still seem to missing a lot of the story. Open AI published several hundred articles in scientific journals claiming to solve maths problems. At my last count they had retracted 3.
If you would like to downplay the scale of theft and unethical behaviour enabled and perpetrated by OpenAI by calling the scientists naive or saying it's acceptable because it happens, that's your right. Perhaps you could just say what would convince you that something bad and dangerous for human scientific progress is happening.
No, they published them on GitHub. Meaning they aren't peer-reviewed. In the current scientific system, peer review is almost always necessary for your work to be taken seriously. If the original authors can get their work published first, they still get precedence. Plus, there have been a number of cases where X discovers and publishes something, Y rediscovers and publishes it a few years later, and Y gets the credit for whatever reason (usually racism or money).
The scientists were naive to hand over their ideas to a shady closed-source model. I don't think what OpenAI did is acceptable, but it is something that already happens without any LLM involvement, so I'm just not as shocked as you are.
Being published on Github makes it not as bad, though it seems the intent is for the peer review to happen there. I also don't think I need to point out the harm in forcing people to publish before they are ready by stealing their work.
In at least some cases, the mathematicians shared their work with OpenAI researchers asking to collaborate. I'll accept your acknowledgment that it's bad and ignore the irrelevant dig about being shocked.
That's not how this works! That's not how any of this works! You submit to some journal, who sends your work to 2-3 other scientists in the field (often anonymously, to reduce bias). There are cases of scientists ignoring journals and just posting their results to repositaries like arXiv, but that's the exception rather than the rule. Anyway, GitHub is not an acceptable place to publish your findings, since it allows you to make changes later on.
That, again, is an issue that existed long before LLMs.
I know that's not how it's supposed to happen. But the Github repository is getting attention and review, like this: https://kingy.ai/blog/openai-math-722-manuscripts-results-proofs-compute-costs/
I still don't get if you're still trying to excuse something bad and getting worse due to AI by saying it was always happening. I have acknowledged that it was happening.