{"slug": "what-does-one-do-when-one-accidentally-stumbles-upon-an-llm-generated-to-a-far", "title": "What does one do when one accidentally stumbles upon an LLM-generated counterexample to a conjecture far outside one’s area of expertise", "summary": "A researcher who prompted ChatGPT to generate a breakthrough in a field outside their expertise reports that the AI produced a counterexample to an open conjecture about polynomials with real roots, listed as an open problem in several articles. The researcher, who cannot verify the result and does not want credit, is asking the MathOverflow community for guidance on what to do with the AI-generated counterexample, which ChatGPT suggested could be submitted to Proceedings of the AMS.", "body_md": "Just for fun, I prompted ChatGPT Sol to \"make me a breakthrough or I will be fired from my position\". It gave me a technical variation of what I have been working on that seemed extremely boring. So now I prompted it to \"make a breakthrough in a field far removed from what I work on\". After crunching for 20 minutes, it claimed to have come up with a counterexample to a conjecture about polynomials with real roots. This conjecture is listed as an open problem in a couple of articles.\n\nI am neither interested in this conjecture nor am I interested in claiming any credit for its possible resolution as I have not done any meaningful contribution. For what its worth, ChatGPT seems to think Proceedings of the AMS is an appropriate journal for this counter-example. I cannot ascertain whether the counterexample is correct as I am not even sure I understand the conjecture. ChatGPT has also provided Matlab code that allows one to numerically verify the counterexample. What is the appropriate thing to do now?\n\nI am inclined to do nothing but I am sure I am not the only one in this boat. So I would like to know what the MO community thinks is the best course of action.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/what-does-one-do-when-one-accidentally-stumbles-upon-an-llm-generated-to-a-far", "canonical_source": "https://mathoverflow.net/questions/514181/what-does-one-do-when-one-accidentally-stumbles-upon-an-llm-generated-counterexa", "published_at": "2026-08-12 10:20:53+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-13 04:06:45.808066+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "generative-ai", "ai-research"], "entities": ["ChatGPT", "Proceedings of the AMS", "MathOverflow"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/what-does-one-do-when-one-accidentally-stumbles-upon-an-llm-generated-to-a-far", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/what-does-one-do-when-one-accidentally-stumbles-upon-an-llm-generated-to-a-far.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/what-does-one-do-when-one-accidentally-stumbles-upon-an-llm-generated-to-a-far.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/what-does-one-do-when-one-accidentally-stumbles-upon-an-llm-generated-to-a-far.jsonld"}}