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To the editor:
It’s been reported that the highest salaries to new graduates are mathematics majors from Duke University and Carnegie Mellon. Those salaries are around $300,000 a year.
How long will math majors at the top universities receive large paydays after OpenAI has just released the findings on 377 math problems at once? Tristan Buckmaster (NYU) wonders how many young students will want to take on the challenge of difficult math problems if, after their intense efforts and progress, OpenAI will use their work and beat them to the solution (some problems offer a one-million-dollar prize for the solution).
Kai Shaikh, a graduate student in mathematics at the University of Toronto, said he thinks the heart of the issue is that humans have two competing natures: a tendency to compete and a capacity to appreciate beauty. He says this OpenAI math race to the finish line seems to be a case of the former attempting to strangle the latter.
As a math major who gave it up because of the difficulty of the work, I couldn’t agree more with Buckmaster, Shaikh and the other math wizards who are alarmed by the theft of their work and quick solutions (as well as errors) to the great math challenges by OpenAI.
Michael J. Gorman
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