OpenAI announces three ‘major’ science discoveries in math, computer science and physics

OpenAI announced on Monday, October 26, that it has made three "major" discoveries in physics, mathematics and computer science.A keyboard is placed in front of a displayed OpenAI logo in this illustration taken February 21, 2023. (REUTERS)OpenAI said they have found the Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH) in computer science, long believed to be true, is actually false. In mathematics, they claimed to have resolved the Kakeya conjecture and Stein’s restriction conjecture "in all dimensions."The discovery in Physics has not been fully disclosed but the announcement said that it is a "mathematically rigorous existence proof of certain interacting quantum field theories containing gauge fields and fermions in four dimensions, including Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) and a unified completion of the Standard Model of particle physics.”OpenAI takes a different approachThe company faced criticism for bypassing academic peer review when it released hundreds of manuscripts with solutions to long-standing math problems last month. This time, the company followed a different approach by incorporating academics as "shepherds" to guide the findings.Also read: OpenAI expands ChatGPT ads globally and sells GPT-6 Astra models through Google Cloud to enterprise customers"To convert this raw research data into scientific understanding, in this release we are experimenting with a new approach," the company said in the announcement. "We reached out to external experts and asked them to act as shepherds, organizing groups to understand the new results."According to the October 26 announcement, the group of experts they consulted on the discoveries recommended different ways of proceeding with the research. For the computer science and physics discoveries, they say they were advised to seek assistance from external experts. For the computer science discovery, the group recommended releasing the raw AI output for researchers to review.Also read: OpenAI to sell its top models on Google Cloud's Model Garden in latest enterprise pushFor the physics problem, "David Gross will lead a group including Michael Douglas, Arthur Jaffe, Igor Klebanov, and Nikita Nekrasov," OpenAI said.The computer science research will be led by a group with UC San Diego’s Russell Impagliazzo and Ramamohan Paturi at the helm, the company said.