Mathematician Tristan Buckmaster of New York University and Levent Alpöge, a researcher affiliated with Anthropic, one of OpenAI’s major competitors, had made significant progress solving the problem over the past month using AI tools adapted from OpenAI and Anthropic. But before they could publicize their findings, OpenAI mounted its own colossal effort—pouring millions of dollars of computational resources into the problem. OpenAI says it didn’t knowingly tap into Buckmaster and Alpöge’s latest work, but Buckmaster has released public statements questioning that position.
Source: How an AI math breakthrough ignited a controversy | Science | AAAS