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Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

cims.nyu.edu

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Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#191

Post by bhouston »

singularity2001 wrote: post #183
n2d4 wrote: post #83

Drama/accusation summary: - Aug 15th: Tristan Buckmaster & Levent Alpöge make progress on a few important math problems, "finite-time blowup with smooth forcing for incompressible porous media, for Boussinesq, and for 3d incompressible Euler." - they do NOT have a proof for the $1,000,000 Millenium Prize problem. BUT, they do claim to have a proof for a similar (non-Millenium) Navier Stokes problem that could help le…

Ignoring the drama, when can we expect the lean proof of this great sensational discovery?

> Ignoring the drama

But the drama here is a little important. Stealing the millennium prize for N-S is sort of a big deal, especially to those who had been working on it for the last few years.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#192

Post by Ar-Curunir »

tristanj wrote: post #160
macleginn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this should be in the title of the post. 'OpenAI allegedly threatening to ruin a prominent researcher's career', or smth like that.

There's some glaring mistakes in your framing. First, this is an unnamed OpenAI employee speaking, not OpenAI the organization. Second, you miscomprehended the article. The employee did not "threaten to ruin a prominent researcher's career". The actual quote is "Why would you ruin your career?", which implies the researcher would damage their own career, i.e. via self-sabotage. Then the actual "threat" is "If you don…

Dude you’re over this entire thread unflinchingly supporting OpenAI with nonsense semantics-based arguments.

Either put up some evidence-backed arguments, or shut up.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#193

Post by irthomasthomas »

robinhouston wrote: post #127
qnleigh wrote: post #17

> It was also said that if OpenAI posted after us, they would say that we deserved the Clay Prize, and that we were the “closest humans to the problem”. I declined both offers. I said that if OpenAI released its result in the way proposed I would go public with what happened. The reply was, “Why would you ruin your career?” I replied that I am an academic, and asked why he thought going public would ruin my career. T…

For context and balance, Bubeck has tweeted a curiously non-specific denial: > A series of false and inflammatory allegations against me are currently circulating on social channels. To clarify, I came into the discussion following academic norms, and I'm disappointed that it has come to this. Anyone who knows me knows that academic standards are of the highest importance to me. Will have more to say tomorrow.

Attack is the best form of defence

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#194

Post by Ar-Curunir »

calf wrote: post #133
qnleigh wrote: post #17

> It was also said that if OpenAI posted after us, they would say that we deserved the Clay Prize, and that we were the “closest humans to the problem”. I declined both offers. I said that if OpenAI released its result in the way proposed I would go public with what happened. The reply was, “Why would you ruin your career?” I replied that I am an academic, and asked why he thought going public would ruin my career. T…

> I'm not even sure what to say to this, but I think this should be widely known if it is indeed what happened. Call this behavior what it is, technofascism. Another comment compared it to the Godfather. To think this is the 21st century and academics are still horrible human beings.

To come away from this thinking that the academic is the bad actor, given OpenAI’s reputation, is certainly an exercise in creative thinking.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#195

Post by rf_physics »

lhd1 wrote: post #144
akersten wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They were coordinating with OpenAI regarding a publishing timeline, but could not come to an agreement, Skimming the PDFs it seems much more dramatic than that? It sounds like at least one of them is concerned OpenAI "solved" the problem by having their internal model use the chats of the independent researchers and want to claim the credit instead? I don't know. The tone is pretty accusational though: > the one Le…

I find the framing a little strange, a sort of David vs Goliath (with his enormous computational resources at his disposal). Since Levent is at Anthropic whose internal models are presumably as capable as anything OpenAI has. So why wasn't Anthropic behind their effort? Why did Tristan use OpenAI's models when it should have been known was a potential outcome? I understand they wanted a normal math collaboration but…

They were working on it for almost a year, and Buckmaster has evidently been interested in Navier-Stokes for a while. This seems to be more of an innocent collaboration between two researchers than a strong company PR effort. Maybe Anthropic should have stepped in and made a large team to help them finish the proof (and maybe they tried and didn't succeed, who knows).

If what he wrote is accurate, it does suggest that OAI is effectively extremely hostile to cutting edge researchers (eg, if we hear rumors about your partial success on a problem that has huge PR benefits, then we'll assemble a strike team of researchers with unlimited compute to claim the win for ourselves, possibly by training on your data). It's also not a good look for them to request author removals based on company affiliations.

I think what you have in mind is more appropriate for more normal corporate projects and the like. But academic collaborations are not usually so political/'profit' driven, if that makes sense.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#196

Post by defmacr0 »

postalcoder wrote: post #40
mayakacz wrote: post #12

I'm not one to comment often but this really pisses me off. OpenAI looked at user data, stole world class researchers' work, and then tried to threaten those researchers to do what would make their corporation profit (which they would anyways!). Imagine you have been working on a terribly difficult math problem for a decade. This is a result you have spent years on, and what you will likely be remembered for. And to…

I'm stunned that people are taking this accusation as a fact. OpenAI is no stranger to rivalry with Anthropic but 1. it's not like user data is sitting around on some kitchen table somewhere and 2. I consider OpenAI to be as economically motivated as any other actor in this space and playing around with user data like that would destroy their business. There are things that Buckmaster alleged and things that he specu…

I am stunned anyone is giving OpenAI the benefit of the doubt

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#197

Post by denverllc »

traes wrote: post #82
instagraham wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A few days later, OpenAI gets back to him, and tells him an internal model found a counterexample for Navier–Stokes Why is OpenAI chatting with him at all at this stage? Is the discussion along the lines of "hey we used the work you are famous for to do a bigger piece of work, just thought you should know" or "heyyy....so we kinda liked what you were typing in your private chat, and thought we'd develop those ideas…

Perhaps out of a sense of academic good will, knowing that he got there first? It seems like the timeline according to OpenAI is that: 1. Buckmaster developed a counterexample to a reduced version of Navier-Stokes with Anthropic employee Levent 2. Rumors start spreading that Anthropic has solved Navier-Stokes 3. OpenAI learns this and starts throwing a ridiculous amount of compute at it, now knowing it's within reach…

The only problem with this narrative is that they refused to allow the other coauthor to be listed because he worked at Anthropic.

That is absolutely *ridiculous* in academia to deny authorship because of affiliation of the author worked on a substantial portion. You’d be ostracized because nobody would ever want to work with you again.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#199

Post by IAmBroom »

calf wrote: post #133
qnleigh wrote: post #17

> It was also said that if OpenAI posted after us, they would say that we deserved the Clay Prize, and that we were the “closest humans to the problem”. I declined both offers. I said that if OpenAI released its result in the way proposed I would go public with what happened. The reply was, “Why would you ruin your career?” I replied that I am an academic, and asked why he thought going public would ruin my career. T…

> I'm not even sure what to say to this, but I think this should be widely known if it is indeed what happened. Call this behavior what it is, technofascism. Another comment compared it to the Godfather. To think this is the 21st century and academics are still horrible human beings.

Are you pretending OpenAI employees are "academics"?

Or are you stating that the researcher is a "horrible human being" for refusing to allow AI?

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#200

Post by Ar-Curunir »

tristanj wrote: post #43
mayakacz wrote: post #12

I'm not one to comment often but this really pisses me off. OpenAI looked at user data, stole world class researchers' work, and then tried to threaten those researchers to do what would make their corporation profit (which they would anyways!). Imagine you have been working on a terribly difficult math problem for a decade. This is a result you have spent years on, and what you will likely be remembered for. And to…

This conclusion is flawed. It's unclear at this point if OpenAI's model or employees actually looked at or stole the author's data. Having worked at large companies before, I'm leaning towards no, since very few employees have access to that data. And simply knowing a problem can be solved is half the battle.

> And simply knowing a problem can be solved is half the battle.

Have you done any mathematical research? If not, then no, knowing that a problem is solvable is not “half the battle”.

Homework problems are all designed to be solvable, yet they can vary greatly in difficulty. Research mathematics is even more extreme, because, unlike with homework, you don’t know that it is solvable with the extant mathematics, and you might need to invent new maths.

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