OpenAI said Tuesday that one of its unreleased artificial intelligence models had solved a mathematical puzzle that has eluded mathematicians for generations, in a claim which also drew a fight with rival researchers over credit.
Researchers at OpenAI said it took just days — and millions of dollars in computing power — to crack what is known as the Navier-Stokes problem.
Each Millennium Prize Problem carries a $1 million reward, and only one has been solved since the list was published in 2000. The agents reached a solution Saturday, about 88 hours after launching the project, according to OpenAI’s account. OpenAI says it will not claim money if its finding is confirmed.
It concerns the equations describing how fluids such as air and water move, which are used in aircraft design, weather forecasting and the study of blood flow.
OpenAI said its work showed that these equations can break down over time, answering the question as set out by the Millennium Prize. “This is a significant milestone for AI research, and its promise for the world is that even more of our hardest questions would become possible to answer,” Mark Chen, OpenAI’s chief research officer, told reporters. A solution has to be published in a peer-reviewed journal and survive two years after gaining acceptance in the mathematical community before the institute will even convene a committee to consider the work, according to the prize rules.
