GoKawiilNYU Professor Says OpenAI May Have Used His Unpublished Work to Claim Math Breakthrough
NYU mathematician Tristan Buckmaster alleges OpenAI's announcement that its Astra model solved the century-old Navier-Stokes problem came suspiciously soon after he and Anthropic researcher Levent Alpöge developed their own solution using AI tools. Buckmaster says OpenAI scientists approached him to jointly announce the finding and allegedly suggested refusing could hurt his career, while declining to confirm whether their model had access to his research. OpenAI credited Astra with the proof and denied using customer data directly, though it admitted it could not rule out use of anonymized data to improve its models.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The dispute exposes tension over how AI companies handle unpublished research shared during collaboration talks, raising questions about data provenance and academic credit in an era when AI can rapidly analyze specialized fields. If firms with massive compute resources can effectively absorb or race past independent researchers' unpublished insights, it could discourage open collaboration and erode trust in AI-assisted scientific claims.
- Buckmaster claims OpenAI's Navier-Stokes solution announcement followed suspiciously soon after his own unpublished work.
- He alleges OpenAI pressured him to co-announce and made career-related warnings if he declined.
- OpenAI denies using customer data directly but admits it can't rule out anonymized data influencing its models.
Source: science.slashdot.org — Posted, 2026-09-15
Published there as: “Math Professor Accuses OpenAI of Copying His Work, Says AI Compute Power Makes Racing to Publish 'Pointless'”
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