Mathematicians criticize OpenAI for using their work, yet continue using its AI tools

September 19, 2026 at 03:00 PM2 min

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Mathematicians Tristan Buckmaster and Andreas Thom accuse OpenAI of using their research to solve major problems without proper credit. Buckmaster says OpenAI's agents built on his approach to solve the Navier-Stokes problem, while Thom says OpenAI's Astra model used his techniques in geometric group theory. Both mathematicians continue to use OpenAI's tools despite their criticism.

Key Facts

Tristan Buckmaster, a professor at New York University, accused OpenAI of copying his approach to solve the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem, which carries a $1 million bounty.
OpenAI amended its announcement on September 8, 2026, to state that Buckmaster's Codex prompts over the two months preceding the announcement could not have influenced the system.
Andreas Thom, a German mathematician, said OpenAI's Astra model used techniques from geometric group theory that he had developed over two decades to prove a long-standing problem.
OpenAI amended its press release after Thom pointed out that its claim of 'no progress' overlooked his 2019 paper and other mathematicians' work.

Buckmaster's Accusation

Tristan Buckmaster, a mathematician at New York University, believes OpenAI used his work to rush ahead and beat him to solving the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem, which has a $1 million bounty. He says OpenAI deployed tens of thousands of agents to reach the solution, but only after it learned the equation was close to being solved. Buckmaster had used Codex and Anthropic's Claude to work on the problem alongside Anthropic researcher Levent Alpöge. OpenAI amended its announcement to say it 'confirmed that Buckmaster's Codex prompts over the two months preceding this announcement and paper on September 8, 2026, could not have influenced the system in any way, including through training.'

Continued Use of AI Tools

Despite his criticism, Buckmaster has been using OpenAI's coding agent Codex to tidy up his research papers in the week and a half since he went public. He says the tool has been helping him understand the logical steps OpenAI's agents might have taken to get from his earlier workings to the final proof. Buckmaster told WIRED, 'Even if you don't agree with any of this, you're kind of stuck. With AI being so useful, it's hard to completely prevent oneself from using it.' He added, 'These companies have a monopoly, and there is not much choice.'

Thom's Experience

German mathematician Andreas Thom has dedicated the last two decades to developing techniques in geometric group theory that only a handful of people understand. When OpenAI said in August that its Astra model had used those techniques to prove a long-standing problem he had been working on, Thom said he was amazed and wondered how the company learned about them. In an August email to OpenAI researchers Mark Sellke and Sébastien Bubeck, Thom pointed out that the firm's assertion that 'no progress' had been made on the problem in the last decade overlooked his 2019 paper and other mathematicians' work. OpenAI amended its press release after Thom's email.