AI makes discoveries in mathematics, computer science, physics, OpenAI says

OpenAI’s announcement is the latest in a series of claimed scientific breakthroughs credited to AI.

OpenAI has announced that its AI models have made several scientific discoveries in mathematics, computer science and physics.

The AI giant said on Monday that the three new discoveries concerned the fields of harmonic analysis, complexity theory and quantum field theory.

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Among the discoveries, AI models proved the local smoothing conjecture, one of the central propositions of harmonic analysis, in every spatial dimension for the first time, according to OpenAI.

Researchers in harmonic analysis, a branch of mathematics that studies how complex signals and functions can be broken down into elementary waves, had previously only proved the theory in three dimensions.

‘Historic development’

Alex Iosevich, a professor of mathematics at the University of Rochester who specialises in harmonic analysis, said OpenAI appeared to have “cracked” the conjecture in 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 the field of theoretical mathematics to “change drastically” due to AI.

“I feel a twinge of sadness as a result,” Iosevich said.

The ChatGPT creator said it had reached out to scientists outside the company to turn its “raw research data into scientific understanding”.