Did OpenAI Solve the Navier-Stokes Problem?
OpenAI announced it solved the 90-year-old Navier-Stokes problem, but this has sparked debates over data privacy and academic ethics.
While OpenAI announced that it found a solution to the roughly 90-year-old Navier-Stokes problem using an internal artificial intelligence model, a mathematics professor from New York University is concerned that the company may have accessed his data.
Details of the Navier-Stokes Solution
OpenAI announced that it has found a solution to the Navier-Stokes problem, which relates to fluid and gas flows and has remained unsolved for about 90 years.
The company stated that it achieved this success by using an advanced internal AI model working alongside 10,000 concurrent agents.
Millennium Problems and Award Status
The Navier-Stokes problem is known as one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems, each of which offers a $1 million reward for its solution.
Following this development, which qualifies as a major academic achievement, OpenAI stated that it does not plan to claim the $1 million prize.
Debates from Academic Circles
New York University mathematics professor Tristan Buckmaster published findings on a related problem just before the announcement.
Buckmaster stated that they had followed a similar path in their collaborative work with Anthropic researcher Levent Alpöge.
Allegations of Data Access Through Codex
Tristan Buckmaster expressed doubts about whether OpenAI had accessed draft data in his Codex sessions while reaching this solution.
The academic expressed concern that the company might have examined the Codex sessions containing drafts belonging to the project.
Statements from OpenAI and Officials
OpenAI defended that no specific user data was accessed to solve the problem and that this data was not used in training the model.
Technical staff member Sebastien Bubeck emphasized that the proofs and exact conclusions of the two parties are different from each other.