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Sébastien Bubeck

AI researcher at OpenAI focused on machine learning theory and reasoning; previously led Microsoft Research's Phi small language model project.

Known aliases

  • Bubeck
  • Sebastian Bubeck
  • Sebastien Bubeck
  • Sébastien Bubeck

Current stories

investConfirmed9 publishers

OpenAI's 88-hour Navier-Stokes run leaves provenance in the vendor's own logs

The theorem was checked in Lean, more than most capability claims get, but the part that moves a valuation, that very little human input went in, rests on prompt timestamps and a training-data question that went unanswered.

Perspective Coverage

9 publishers
Builder
Builder 34%
Operator
Operator 27%
Investor
Investor 39%

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+35
Incentives75
Confidence50
buildConfirmed8 publishers

OpenAI ships a Lean build that checks its Navier-Stokes proof against its own definitions

OpenAI's 165-page proof ships with a Lean 4 formalization anyone can download and build, which settles whether the argument follows from its own definitions and leaves whether those definitions state the Clay problem to human readers.

Perspective Coverage

8 publishers
Builder
Builder 41%
Operator
Operator 30%
Investor
Investor 29%

Reality

Evidence50
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+40
Incentives70
Confidence60
productConfirmed2 publishers

OpenAI readies hundreds of AI math results for GitHub despite mathematicians' request for papers going unheeded

OpenAI plans to post hundreds of AI-generated math results on GitHub on Tuesday, people familiar with the plans told WIRED. The mathematicians it consulted in August asked for papers they could absorb and use, so a bulk upload leaves that work to every reader.

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+55
Incentives70
Confidence50
scienceOne report1 publisher

OpenAI's 10,000 agents propose a Navier-Stokes blowup that needs an external force

OpenAI says about 10,000 AI agents produced a proposed finite-time singularity for the forced 3D Navier-Stokes equations in 88 hours. The construction fits one route the Clay rules allow and leaves unforced smoothness open, while the mathematicians whose forced-Euler work came first ask whether their Codex drafts reached the model.

Publishers:kdnuggets.com

Reality

Evidence35
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+30
Incentives70
Confidence40
scienceConfirmed7 publishers

Terence Tao says automated proof checking is why the AI labs stopped consulting mathematicians

A proof checker confirmed the steps of OpenAI's Navier-Stokes result within days. The argument now running through mathematics is over who explains the 166 pages and who gets the credit for them.

Perspective Coverage

7 publishers
Builder
Builder 46%
Operator
Operator 33%
Investor
Investor 21%

Reality

Evidence60
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+40
Incentives70
Confidence58
leadershipConfirmed5 publishers

OpenAI's Navier-Stokes claim sparks dispute over whether mathematicians' data was accessed

OpenAI says no specific user data was accessed to solve the problem, and that it cannot rule out that de-identified data derived from two mathematicians' use of its products improved its models. A procurement team has to read both sentences.

Perspective Coverage

5 publishers
Builder
Builder 36%
Operator
Operator 33%
Investor
Investor 31%

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+45
Incentives70
Confidence60
investOne report1 publisher

OpenAI asks nine unpaid mathematicians how to release its 100-plus math results

OpenAI says its new nine-member mathematics advisory group will not advise on the pace of its internal research, and the group's own website says the decisions rest with the AI companies.

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption40
Hype gap+35
Incentives70
Confidence45
productOne report1 publisher

Buckmaster is using OpenAI's Codex to reconstruct how OpenAI's agents beat him to Navier-Stokes

A week and a half after accusing OpenAI of copying his approach to a problem carrying a $1 million bounty, the NYU mathematician is still running the company's coding agent on his own papers.

Publishers:wired.com

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption45
Hype gap+18
Incentives72
Confidence55
productOne report1 publisher

OpenAI takes back $1m of Mathathon credits on the day 771 mathematicians publish their letter

A Caltech open letter says research mathematicians end up verifying and correcting what AI companies announce, without pay or credit. OpenAI's sponsorship was $1m in credits, and it took them back.

Publishers:thenextweb.com

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption58
Hype gap+14
Incentives74
Confidence60
productOne report1 publisher

OpenAI denies reading two mathematicians' Codex logs before racing them to Navier-Stokes

Tristan Buckmaster says OpenAI accelerated onto Navier-Stokes after learning of his work with Anthropic's Levent Alpoge, and that the answer he got about his prompt history addressed lookup rather than training.

Publishers:wired.com

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption30
Hype gap+45
Incentives88
Confidence50
productOne report1 publisher

OpenAI now calls it impossible that a Codex user's prompts reached its model

Tristan Buckmaster used OpenAI's Codex on the Navier-Stokes problem, then asked whether his prompts had fed the system that beat him to a proof, and the company's answer to The Verge got firmer over time.

Publishers:theverge.com

Reality

Evidence60
Adoption18
Hype gap+30
Incentives82
Confidence55
scienceOne report1 publisher

A twelve-year prime-gap record changed hands three times inside four days

Julia Stadlmann's cut to the small prime-gap bound was the first in twelve years, and a rumor pushed her to post it in August. Axiom Math and OpenAI both went lower before the preprint was four days old.

Publishers:sciencenews.org

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption45
Hype gap+20
Incentives80
Confidence55
productOne report1 publisher

Andreas Thom wants OpenAI to prove his ChatGPT sessions stayed out of the training data

OpenAI says no specific user data was accessed to solve the problems it announced, while declining to rule out that de-identified usage data improved its models. For anyone holding unpublished work, that gap is the entire policy question.

Publishers:theverge.com

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+18
Incentives74
Confidence55
productOne report1 publisher

OpenAI's 88-hour Navier-Stokes run burned roughly 880,000 agent-hours

OpenAI says the run took 88 hours and cost millions, which tells a small research group more about whether it can compete than the proof itself does, and its wording on user data shows the limit of what any vendor can promise.

Publishers:theverge.com

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+40
Incentives78
Confidence54
investOne report1 publisher

OpenAI spent more than $1m of compute on a prize it says it will not claim

The Navier-Stokes result cost more in compute than the Clay Institute's award, and the interesting line in OpenAI's blog post is the one conceding it cannot rule out that customers' de-identified prompts helped.

Reality

Evidence32
Adoption14
Hype gap+34
Incentives74
Confidence44
productOne report1 publisher

Mathematicians set the verification bar for AI proofs by shipping the Lean file

OpenAI says roughly 10,000 agents produced a Navier-Stokes singularity proof in about 88 hours, but the only proofs an outsider can run belong to two mathematicians who posted Lean formalisations with their preprints.

Publishers:thenextweb.com

Reality

Evidence42
Adoption22
Hype gap+45
Incentives78
Confidence52