OpenAI has pulled its $1m sponsorship of a student-run AI maths event at Caltech. Mathematicians had signed an open letter calling for the event to be scrapped. The next day, 25 Fields Medallists published a separate declaration of their own.
Two letters in two days, from two different groups, is the sharpest response the mathematical community has made to AI companies so far. Neither is about whether the models work. Both are about what the companies do with the results.
The first letter, and the word that stuck
A coalition of current and former Caltech mathematicians circulated the open letter from 8 September and published it on the 10th. It carried 771 signatories at publication. Business Insider put the figure above 700 academics and students. Only the Caltech community and mathematics researchers at PhD level or above may sign it.
The letter asks the organisers to suspend the event. It gives five grounds. The first is the one the coverage picked up. The letter calls it slop mathematics: produced fast, and left for other people to check later.
