In what world is OpenAI not “genuinely contributing to mathematics”?
I’m getting whiplash from the speed at which people are suddenly accusing them, and AI in general, of not doing enough.
But you are right, this is not OpenAI's "fault". The problem is - as others have said recently - that many people in mathematics want recognition for solving open questions more than they want the answers to the open questions. Everything about the economics and social environment of Mathematics will have to change.
I think that this is exactly the same split we see in software: there are those who mainly enjoy the craft aspect of building software, and are uninterested in the product or business they are supporting. Others are primarily interested in the production of useful software or building a platform or company.
I've always been in both camps myself. When it became obvious that AI was going to destroy the craft aspect - at least two years before it actually could do so - I became very discouraged, even depressed. But once it was actually good at building software, I became very excited about all the stuff I could now build. Sadly, I think a lot of people in our field have never had something they really wanted to build.
That community won't exist as many people simply won't even enter the field because it's reprehensible and contemptible, not to mention boring, just to read machine-generated proofs and verify them.
Collaborating on, or at least working on unsolved problems is what motivates most people.
AI is like a cheat code in a video game. You get to the end faster but fewer people want to play if the cheat code is always on. You can't turn it off either because the very challenge is to do something unique.
This is code for "they keep paying us".
So effectively, stuff got proved, but people don't really understand how, so it's mostly fucking useless and done for OpenAI's marketing team, while also pissing off the maths world at large.