OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says mathematicians have already gone from 'we're cooked' to accepting AI

Sam Altman says mathematicians are coming around after OpenAI upended mathematics.

Bloomberg/Getty Images OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and mathematicians have a complicated relationship.

OpenAI has taken credit for solving hundreds of math problems, irking many mathematicians.

At a recent talk at Stanford, Altman said mathematicians have already gone from anger to acceptance.

Like someone in mourning, Sam Altman said mathematicians went through phases after OpenAI began its blitz into the field.

First, there was disbelief.

Then, there was pain.

"The day one reaction was like, 'We're cooked, and our field is over,'" OpenAI's CEO said.

"'We're telling our grad students to switch majors.'" After that, there was anger.

"The day three reaction was maybe like: 'It's horrible that OpenAI did this,'" Altman said at a recent talk at Stanford, before hundreds of students jittery about the viability of their future careers.

Come day five, though, in Altman's telling, mathematicians began to come around to what he described as AI's now-inalienable role in the study of numbers and proofs.

"We've now seen a lot of people say, actually, I'm going to have a different but hopefully better kind of career as a mathematician," Altman said.

Altman's buoyant assessment contrasts sharply with what some in the math community have described as an existential transformation.

After OpenAI abruptly broke into the field's prerogatives in September, announcing its models had solved the Navier-Stokes equations — a famously challenging math puzzle that stumped the industry's brightest since the 19th Century — preeminent mathematicians erupted in fury.