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Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

cims.nyu.edu

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Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#261
post #144
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 have messed things up, because Levent has a conflict of interest between his job at Anthropic and this independent work, and Tristan should have opted out of OpenAI training on their work (he probably didn't know about this). This doesn't justify OpenAI's despicable attempt to steal their work.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#262
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…

> After hearing of the rumor, OpenAI started researching Navier Stokes with a new internal model. I don't think this part is accurate. OpenAI was researching Navier Stokes before. It's possible that they started on a new approach after hearing of Tristan's success, however that is not proven and I expect we will hear OpenAI's side of the story today.

You're right — the wording in the doc is that the "first prompt" was sent after learning about the rumor, although this might be the first prompt of this solution approach, not necessarily first prompt to any Navier Stokes solution.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#263

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…

Given the history of OpenAI and current litigations, I would say they've developed a bit of a reputation for not respecting intellectual property. I'm dubious they have some unbreakable moral code that would prevent them from viewing and using user data.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#264
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…

[deleted]

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#265
post #163
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…

It seems exceptionally unlikely to me that OpenAI would be "reading user prompts". More likely is a leak somewhere else. Obviously Anthropic/OpenAI are engaged in espionage stuff with each other. I am guessing Levent just mentioned something to someone at Anthropic and it got out.

Of course they are "reading user prompts" in the sense that it's being used to further training. That's why you have to pay up to opt out of that.

That's also why they refused to answer that question: the answer is obviously "obviously"!

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even understand the conflict tbh. Probably I'm just dense. Tristan is not claiming NS, just a huge advance which may solve NS soon. OAI is claiming NS and willing to credit Tristan for the ideas and publish after. Oai offers two options, the second Tristan views as dishonest. But Tristan rejects the first, why? Because he thinks it's theft? But then why would OAI threaten him?

He claims to have found a counterexample for NS (see the second paragraph of the article), but the paper is not ready yet. OpenAI claims to already have a full proof (which they produced in the past 5 days after the rumors leaked). Hence the dispute. What I find interesting is the timeline of when he found counterexample for NS is very unclear. Did Tristan find a counterexample weeks ago or was it very recently? Was…

Is that version of NS Tristan stated enough for the clay prize? I thought the main gripe is Tristan claimed that OAI is stealing their approach. Or that they shouldn't try to scoop a result which he expects to complete soon. But I stand to be corrected if you know whether the version he referred to is indeed enough for millennium prize.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#267

The timeframes don't really fit for Codex logs to be used in training/fine-tuning, do they? This wouldn't be a few-day endeavour? Direct access to Codex history for sure I'd believe, but another (the most?) likely scenario to me feels like OpenAI got wind of these guys' progress, then used their massive infrastructure advantage to throw compute at the problem ahead of them and front-run them. Still has a really bad s…

They probably just had an employee read his chats, figure out the general approach, and feed it to Codex. All they said was the model doesn’t look up user data, not employees.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#268
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…

But Tristan doesn't even want to be credited for the millennium prize--does he? He wanted to be the first to solve it and got scooped (which ig is not a great look for OAI ethically but also not forbidden). And the only reading for her of asking to remove levent must be in light of this offer (to credit him for millennium prize) right? It's not like they can ask him to remove levent from the main papers without this offer(what would Tristan gain?)

My guess is that OAI tried to be "generous" and offered to share credit on millennium with Tristan but not Levent. And Tristan got understandably offended by this offer (which probably oai felt like was the right thing to offer but they couldn't really offer to do the most ethical thing for some reason) and then the random conflicts and weird threats started.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#270
post #223
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are various forces at play here, academic honesty requires them to disclose any inputs regardless of license or ToS circumstances. While common sense reminds us here that if you send your data to an external entity’s computer, you are no longer in control of said data. The lines have blurred here clearly over the last decade, but that should have made the theory yet more clear to everyone involved: your data wi…

But if they didn't opt out of training, did they want OpenAI to opt out for them? Also they need to audit anyone they sent drafts to to make sure they opted out before submitting it. I'd prefer things be opt in, and especially not start opt out, then try to trick you opt in with a popup defaulting to opt-in, like Anthropic did on consumer plans, but if they submitted anything on an opted-in plan it's not reasonable t…

If you don't trust the other party, then it doesn't matter how the checkbox is set. The fundamental rule, IMO, is don't send precious or secret data to a third party.
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