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Live Science · September 10, 2026

'Why would you ruin your career?': OpenAI claims to have cracked one of math's greatest unsolved problems, but mathematicians allege it played dirty

PhilosophyHigher EducationComputer Science
THE AI ANGLE
Executing and verifying large-scale mathematical proofs using multi-agent systems

OpenAI claimed that a fleet of roughly 10,000 AI agents solved a longstanding singularity problem tied to the Navier-Stokes equations, verifying the proof using the Lean software. However, the claim sparked widespread controversy when New York University mathematician Tristan Buckmaster alleged OpenAI adopted his and Levent Alpöge's niche 'smooth forcing' technique after hearing rumors of their breakthrough. The dispute highlights severe institutional and ethical frictions between resource-heavy AI companies and university researchers over academic credit and research appropriation.

THE TEACHING ANGLE
Instructors can examine the ethics of intellectual attribution and power imbalances when well-funded corporate AI labs race to formalize and replicate unpublished mathematical methods originating in academia.

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