Lozano-Robledo said he hopes engaging with AGMAI is a serious attempt by OpenAI to address mathematicians’ concerns, but stressed that doing so means it should be a responsible member of the research community. That requires more than simply dropping results into the world and moving on, as many mathematicians believe it has done with its most recent findings. Researchers The Verge spoke to complained of poorly written manuscripts and scant engagement with the literature surrounding a finding, all of which makes it difficult to understand a result’s significance and leaves key work without the appropriate credit. At times, the company had quietly changed documents to shore up shortcomings after they were released, but didn’t announce changes or leave a clear record of what was altered. The Vergenoticed this when the company announced “Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science” in early August, and Hairer separately described times when it felt like the company altered manuscripts “sneakily” in response to criticism. “That also makes people paranoid, right?” Hairer said, describing it as “shoddy” and “really bad and sloppy scholarship.”
