Controversy over ‘Mathathon’ at Caltech

A brand new occasion on the California Institute of Know-how, referred to as ‘Mathathon’, pulled collectively by a gaggle of undergraduate college students to “promote the accountable use of AI in arithmetic” shortly bumped into controversy final week.

Scheduled for October 30 to November 1 this yr, its first spherical can have 100 groups of mathematicians work on open issues in arithmetic for 40 hours, with every group receiving round $20,000 price of tokens to make use of on frontier AI fashions. The groups which have made probably the most progress will enter a second spherical that will likely be six months lengthy. In response to the organisers, the occasion goals partially to extend the publicity of mathematicians outdoors AI firms to highly effective fashions.

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Nevertheless, on September 10, a coalition of present and former Caltech mathematicians revealed an open letter, signed  by over 700 of their friends, together with 4 Fields Medal winners, asking for the Mathathon to be referred to as off. The letter mentioned the Mathathon’s accelerated format would encourage “slop” arithmetic that different mathematicians should then spend effort and time to right and confirm. As a result of OpenAI and Anthropic had sponsored the occasion, the letter additionally accused AI firms of turning open arithmetic issues into publicity contests whereas draining arithmetic of its human and social assets.

Whereas the organisers subsequently modified a number of the Mathathon’s guidelines, together with requiring members within the second spherical to publish their work as preprint papers on the arXiv repository, they refused to cancel the occasion. Nevertheless, OpenAI withdrew as a sponsor; the web site presently says Anthropic will present $600,000 in credit.