Research
2026-08-08
Mathematicians say OpenAI's AI-written proofs leaned on their work without crediting it
A week after OpenAI presented ten mathematical results produced by its upcoming Astra model, several named mathematicians say the write-ups reuse published ideas without citing them. Steven Miller of Yeshiva University says the sphere-packing result rests on an argument from a 2016 paper of his own; Francesco Fournier-Facio of the University of Cambridge says the group-theory result is an elementary combination of 2016 and 2019 work by Gábor Kun and Andreas Thom, presented as a new discovery. OpenAI has softened its original claim that the problems had seen no progress for at least a decade. A spokesperson said the company takes responsibility for the correctness of the results, holds itself to the standards expected of human mathematicians, and will make small updates to the paper.
Why it mattersThe proofs were formalized in Lean, so a machine can confirm each step follows. What no machine checks is whether the result is new — and that is exactly where the dispute lands. Mathematicians had already warned about this in the Leiden Declaration, endorsed by the International Mathematical Union, which asks AI labs to credit prior work and stop announcing results by press release. How this one is settled will shape what an AI lab is allowed to call a breakthrough.
✓ Verified · 3 sources
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