Mathematician Tristan Buckmaster accused OpenAI of academic misconduct regarding a solution to the Navier-Stokes equations, one of the Clay Millennium Problems with a $1 million prize. Buckmaster alleged that OpenAI pressured him, attempted to remove his co-author Levent Alpöge, and threatened his career after research drafts were uploaded to Codex.
OpenAI acknowledged that it cannot rule out the possibility that de-identified data from user inputs helped improve its models. The company began its research effort after hearing rumors that Anthropic’s models had solved the problem. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated that the team acted with integrity and denied the plagiarism accusations.
Levent Alpöge disputed Altman’s claim that he was unwilling to coordinate with OpenAI, stating he would have welcomed collaboration. The incident has sparked concerns among researchers, including mathematician Terence Tao, regarding the risks of sharing promising research with AI labs that may use the data to compete with the original authors.
The dispute highlights broader questions about open science as AI companies race to solve complex problems. Critics warn that the current incentives may discourage researchers from sharing their work, potentially damaging long-standing traditions of academic collaboration and transparency in the scientific community.
