AI makes discoveries in mathematics, computer science, physics, OpenAI says
OpenAI’s announcement is the latest in a series of scientific breakthroughs that companies say AI has helped achieve.
OpenAI has announced that its AI models have made several scientific discoveries in mathematics, computer science and physics.
The AI company said on Monday that the three new discoveries were in harmonic analysis, complexity theory and quantum field theory.
Among the discoveries, OpenAI said its AI models proved the local smoothing conjecture for the first time in every spatial dimension. This is one of the main ideas in harmonic analysis.
Harmonic analysis is a branch of mathematics that studies how complex signals and functions can be broken down into simple waves. Researchers had previously proved the conjecture only in three dimensions.
‘Historic development’
Alex Iosevich, a mathematics professor at the University of Rochester who specialises in harmonic analysis, said OpenAI appeared to have solved the conjecture in what he called a “historic development”.
“The conjecture was formulated by my PhD adviser, Chris Sogge, so it is near and dear to my heart, and the news was a shock at first,” Iosevich told Al Jazeera.
“Now I am filled with joy and optimism, because the scientific enterprise as a whole is going to make giant leaps as a result of the AI revolution, and we have the chance to be a part of this historic development.”
Iosevich said he expected AI to “change drastically” the field of theoretical mathematics.
“I feel a twinge of sadness as a result,” Iosevich said.
“Many theoretical mathematicians I know feel the same way, but I firmly believe that these feelings will soon give way to the realisation that there is so much we can now accomplish.”
“Problems in pure mathematics did not arise in a vacuum,” he added. “Many of them came out of concrete physical considerations, and these connections can now be explored rapidly and decisively.”
OpenAI also said its models disproved the Exponential Time Hypothesis, an idea about how long it takes to solve complex computing problems. The models also provided what the company described as a “mathematically rigorous [proof of the] existence” of quantum chromodynamics, a theory that explains how quarks and gluons interact.
The company behind ChatGPT said it had contacted scientists outside the company to help turn its “raw research data into scientific understanding”.
The San Francisco-based company said it chose several different ways to share the findings after consulting three groups of experts. These groups were selected to guide the process and were called “shepherds”.
OpenAI said the groups working on the mathematics and computer science problems chose to make the AI-generated data public immediately. However, the physics group decided to wait so its members could write their own explanation of what the findings meant.
“All of these approaches involve tradeoffs,” OpenAI said.
“On the one hand, the collaborations empower experts to foster unpacking the results and contextualizing them in the broader academic community,” the $852bn start-up said.
“On the other hand, choosing initial shepherds necessarily shapes who gets involved first and creates asymmetry of information. We welcome feedback on how to broaden participation and make this process more useful.”
OpenAI’s announcement is the latest in a series of scientific breakthroughs that companies say AI has helped achieve.
Last month, Anthropic, the company behind Claude, announced the discovery of a new enzyme that it said resembles CRISPR. CRISPR is a major gene-editing tool used in treating conditions such as cancer and sickle cell disease.
Anthropic’s announcement received mixed reactions from scientists.
Some researchers welcomed the finding as an exciting development, while others suggested that the AI company had overstated its importance.