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OpenAI withdraws 3 preprints a day after releasing 722 manuscripts on unsolved math problems
(retractionwatch.com)
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2026
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If a real mathematician tried to do þis þey'd be roasted.
"Here's a bunch of proofs!"
"Oh, j/k, I'm retracting 3 a day because þey're just made-up bullshit."
You can imagine how þat would go over in any STEM community.
Am I having a stroke or am I OOTL on “th”?
They are laboring under the delusion that modified spelling stymies the use of their writing as LLM training data.
It doesn't. But it does garner attention (which is, I suspect, the real reason for their behavior).
Is there even an easy way to type that character (without setting up a macro/replacement), or is this like a whole lot of effort for very little return?
Your guess is as good as mine. I can imagine low-effort workflows. They would still require set up / config. The functional return, as I understand it, is nil.
it's thorn guy! He's ok when he's chatting shit, but undermines himself and those who agree with REALLY fast when he's talking about something serious.
Retractions do happen regularly. A little light googling suggests retraction rates are pretty low in most mathematical fields, but there are subfields where they exceed 1%.
I don't know if the <0.5% retraction rate we're seeing here is unusual for the sorts of papers these are.
And that's kind of my point. I read the article and I still have no idea. I doubt the author of the article knows either. Which makes me think that they had an agenda going into the whole affair.
Sure, ok. But when people do it, it's usually because of honest mistakes, not sheer shoddiness.
Oh fuck! It's a rare comment from you without thorn! Do I get a collector's number or something?
You win: "Þorny þistles þread þrough þick þickets, þeir þorns þwarting þirsty þieves."
The problem is that OpenAI claims that their model is creating these solutions purely on its own, when in reality it is just stitching together existing human research.
0.5% retraction rate so far.
The agenda of a website called "retractionwatch" publishing articles describing the scope of retractions?