OpenAI gives $5 million to a new Simons Foundation initiative helping mathematicians examine results produced by AI
We want to support the mathematics community in turning progress in AI into deeper human understanding and new discoveries. To support that goal, we are contributing $5 million to a new Simons Foundation initiative to help mathematicians examine, understand, and build on results produced by AI, including the results we recently published. The funding, managed and awarded by the @SimonsFdn will support workshops, conferences, and special programs. We will also provide access to our models and computing resources to Simons Foundation-supported researchers.
Context
AI labs are producing math results faster than mathematicians can check them, and this funding is meant to let the research community, not the companies, set the standards.
This is a first hand announcement from OpenAI, quoting the Simons Foundation's own post. The $5 million is OpenAI's contribution to a $15 million combined effort with Anthropic and the Simons Foundation, which will manage and award the money. Anthropic's share is not stated separately.
Deep dive
On October 15, OpenAI posted that it is contributing $5 million to a new Simons Foundation initiative to help mathematicians examine, understand and build on results produced by AI, including results OpenAI recently published. It said the foundation will manage and award the funding for workshops, conferences and special programs, and that OpenAI will also give supported researchers access to its models and computing resources.
The Simons Foundation announced the same day that it, Anthropic and OpenAI will commit $15 million in combined funding and resources. The foundation will award the money through an open call for proposals, for workshops and initiatives that help researchers evaluate recent AI assisted results, learn new tools, share perspectives and shape collective standards for AI use. Anthropic and OpenAI will also provide AI tools and computing to foundation supported researchers, extending beyond mathematics to basic science.
Foundation president David Spergel said the community, not any single company, should drive how the tools are evaluated, adopted and used. The foundation said it was an early backer of machine learning for science, including funding the Lean proof assistant, which it says made AI assisted proofs possible.
OpenAI's post is an update to its earlier page on sharing AI progress in mathematics, where it says it wants AI progress to push the frontier of human knowledge.
Later on October 15, Anthropic posted that it has committed $5 million of funding, compute and Claude access to help the math community navigate the changes AI brings, with the Simons Foundation managing the award through a community driven approach that supports workshops, conferences and lectures by domain experts.
What to expect next
Watch for the open call for proposals and which workshops and programs the foundation funds first, and how the two labs' $5 million commitments are split between money, compute and model access.
Also watch whether the effort produces published checks of the AI math results OpenAI has been releasing, and whether other labs and funders join similar community led review programs. The first funded workshops should show what this looks like.