Some mathematicians I know who've been following this have realized that they'd all gotten some emails from people they now know to be affiliated with OpenAI/Anthropic asking questions about their research in a way that seemed like scooping attempts.

Also, a lot of my mathematicians buddies have reported students basically asking if it's worth ever doing grad school for pure math, and even very motivated students are looking for other options now. It's not because they aren't passionate about it, it's that they don't want to work for another half decade or more just to have to start their careers all over.

All of this so that OpenAI and Anthropic can get into math result dick measuring to gas up their IPOs. Sickening.

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alansaber 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You can't blame students for not seeing academia as the holy grail of knowledge anymore, when all the dialogue about technology and discovery has shifted to the hands of two private corporations

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mdspan 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Curious, what other options are prospective pure math grad students considering?

	▲	viccis 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		At this school? Big four internships. Consider this a complete squandering of their potential (at least imo) These are mathematicians at top institutions, which is partly why they're being prodded for ideas, and getting the best and brightest to not take these consulting firms' offers was already a challenge.
	▲	ethanwillis 15 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I think Anthropic told them being a plumber is a great option.

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dist-epoch 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

One has nothing to do with the other.

It was long predicted that math and software developments would be the first domain where AI was going to do major damage.

If OpenAI and Anthropic didn't get into math result dick measuring, Internet anons would have in their place, 6 months later when it got cheaper.

	▲	rsfern 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think you’re missing an important distinction. “Major damage” to the talent pipeline because models become capable of original end-to-end mathematics is what the community has been discussing. But if the models rely on sniping nearly complete work then this damage is antisocial without a lot of upside, it would be destroying a talent pipeline that would still necessary for continued progress. Which is it? I don’t think OpenAI is being transparent enough for us to really understand whether these results would have been possible without relying on unpublished information from the solution strategies of the experts