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Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

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Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#791
post #57

So, leaving aside the idea that OA might've used data from the researchers Codex sessions: Do I understand correctly that the internal OpenAI work on the problems was probably started after they heard Alpoge and Buckmaster had made process by using their models? And they used the publicly available info about the researchers past work to prompt their models? If compute is cheap, and the difficult thing with scientifi…

>If compute is cheap

This cost millions of dollars of tokens.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#792
It certainly does not excuse any actions, but it seems like OAI’s initial and continued intent was to scoop Anthropic. Unfortunate that it seems Buckmaster ultimately became collateral damage within the _battleground_ of his own research project.

Strange times.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#793
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…

I was kind of okay with the sequence until:

"OpenAI says they would partially credit Tristan for the $1,000,000 discovery (even though Tristan did not solve the $1,000,000 problem) — but only if they remove Levent as an author, as he works for Anthropic."

There it is.

Nobody "owns" math but that's petty and shitty.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#794
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just meant that choosing the same 2 routes out of 4 would not at all be a great coincidence without knowing what Tristan was working on.

if you assume the choice of route is a uniformly distributed random variable, yes. but this assumption does not seem consistent with "Almost nobody else I know of was working on it", from Tristan's quote. nor with "It is not the direction one arrives at in a few days by giving a model the problem statement".

It doesn't really make sense what he said. Everyone expects N-S to have blow-up. If you are going to try to show blow-up, C and D are strictly easier than A and B. So Tristan was not clear about what detail of "route" he is talking about, because what he literally said can not be it.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#795
post #768

Is it possible that they claim they used a "new internal model" to provide an excuse for "training" on new user data, knowing full well this new user data will include Buckmaster's chat? So the entire "new internal model" is 'parallel construction' in criminology speak to justify spying on Buckmaster's work in a legal way.

If that turns out to be true somehow, they will also say that their TOS probably covers that anyway so it is not their fault.

It doesn’t seem this is a question of ToS though. I would hope it is abundantly clear to anyone and everyone:

THEY’RE USING YOUR DATA

As they involve themselves directly, explicitly in the process of scientific research and discovery, it becomes a question of scientific and professional ethics.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#796

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 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.

And that's exactly why you can only see evidence of this when the stakes are high enough, such as solving a Millenium problem. The legalese they outputted in response to the incident left them an escape hatch that permits the possibility of theft. People familiar with corporate damage control should recognize the verbal maneuvering, often used to paper over actual guilt.

There was also already a high prior of shadiness. The company is run by someone who is close enough in reputation to "known sociopath".

It's actually far more reasonable to assume that OpenAI stole user data to generate a breakthrough. They have an unbelievably high economic motive to do so. And even a low chance that they might be doing this implies catastrophic risk to anyone with valuable knowledge.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#797

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Sam Altman and Sebastien Bubeck admitted they only want Buckmaster to be the lead author on a rewrite of the OpenAI proof. https://x.com/sama/status/2097385167002415140 https://x.com/SebastienBubeck/status/2097379411691516310 A wake up call for using OpenAI models. If you discover something with their model and you work for a competitor, they “felt it would be inappropriate” for you “to author OpenAI’s work”.

These responses seem to me to make it abundantly clear who's telling the truth here. I wonder who this fools. It would be extraordinarily easy to simply say, this model was not trained on your work, if that were the case. It's telling that they refuse to acknowledge the root issue here, and are attempting to shift the conversation elsewhere.

> One can in hindsight see that our proofs differ significantly and even the precise results proved are different in the Euler case (forced vs unforced).

is this true though?

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#799
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…

This should be a watershed moment for everyone using a commercial LLM. EVERY PIECE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY YOU DISCUSS WITH IT BECOMES THEIR PROPERTY. FULL STOP.

It is impossible to fight against this. It is statistically obfuscated, they can just argue it is a derived work.

Re: Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]

#800
post #537
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…

The last two points are disputed/sound significantly more reasonable in [0]. So from what I gather, Buckmaster realizes sometime during the call that the biggest result of his career is going to get steamrolled (the blowup of Navier Stokes is a much bigger deal than the blowup of 3D Euler), and on the other hand the openAi guys realize that they are basically talking about internal results with Anthropic and probably…

I think this summary captures the interpersonal and cross organization dynamics nicely.
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