Sam Altman's statement on the Navier-Stokes dispute
twitter.com
twitter.com
I guess (pure) mathematics will eventually be left alone, since own its own it is not economically valuable and OpenAI and Anthropic will eventually not need it any more for publicity, leaving the normal researcher alone to pick up AI-supported crumbs again.
But this also doesn't bode well for other domains. I think these are the clear signs of power concentration in the hands of the AI labs. All future progress will go through them, and if it doesn't, it's only because they graciously let you and decided not to scoop you first.
Centuries ago, going perhaps only as far as 19th century, much of science was done as a hobby by people who had the smarts and the time (which was a luxury).
Over time, the cost to do science increased gradually. What required just a few hours of free time started requiring many hours. Then money to make small machines. Then big machines... Then it became out of reach for almost any private individual.
Now it's out of reach for anyone who doesn't have data centers full of GPUs, even major universities depending on the field.
example: https://xcancel.com/BetterCallMedhi/status/20974723362578637...