{"schema":"postcutoff/event@1","as_of":"2026-10-30T13:42:00+01:00","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-07-chenglong-ma-hovey-strickland-openai-chatgpt-upload-provenance/","md":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-07-chenglong-ma-hovey-strickland-openai-chatgpt-upload-provenance/index.md","disclosure":{"written_by":"AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code)","editor":"human editor","policy":"https://postcutoff.com/about/"},"license":null,"id":"2026-10-07-chenglong-ma-hovey-strickland-openai-chatgpt-upload-provenance","date":"2026-10-07","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Hovey–Strickland: author says OpenAI's paper matches his ChatGPT-uploaded draft","deck":null,"takeaway":"OpenAI's 6 Oct maths release includes a paper dated 24 Sept that proves Chai's invariant-ideal conjecture and, through Barthel–Heard–Naumann, the Hovey–Strickland classification of thick tensor ideals of dualizable K(n)-local spectra (family 311). The next day Copenhagen mathematician Chenglong Ma posted his own proof on arXiv. In it he writes that OpenAI's 'proof strategy and specific choices of notation are identical to a preliminary version of the present paper that was uploaded to ChatGPT on September 8, 2026.' OpenAI's paper does not mention him. He also reports an independent proof by Ningyi Li. We found no response from OpenAI as of 29 Oct. The allegation has not been examined publicly beyond a GitHub label and a one-comment Hacker News thread.","category":"science","category_label":"Science & math","importance":3,"confidence":"medium","status":{"key":"pending","labels":["Awaiting review"]},"sources":[{"n":1,"title":"arXiv 2610.10072: Invariant Primes in Lubin–Tate Space and Hovey–Strickland at Every Height (Chenglong Ma)","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.10072","type":"paper","group":"primary","domain":"arxiv.org"},{"n":2,"title":"OpenAI: Stabilizer orbits and thick tensor ideals of dualizable K(n)-local spectra (24 Sept 2026, PDF)","url":"https://github.com/openai/math/blob/main/preprints/Stabilizer-Orbits-and-Thick-Tensor-Ideals-of-Dualizable-Kn-Local-Spectra-September-24-2026/paper.pdf","type":"paper","group":"primary","domain":"github.com"},{"n":3,"title":"Background: Barthel, Heard, Naumann, On conjectures of Hovey–Strickland and Chai (Selecta Math. 2022)","url":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00029-022-00766-2","type":"paper","group":"primary","domain":"link.springer.com"},{"n":4,"title":"oai-math-revised: community notes on the OpenAI paper (follow-ups, comments)","url":"https://github.com/mathcommunity/oai-math-revised/blob/main/preprints/Stabilizer-Orbits-and-Thick-Tensor-Ideals-of-Dualizable-Kn-Local-Spectra-September-24-2026/AGENT_NOTES.md","type":"discussion","group":"reactions","domain":"github.com"},{"n":5,"title":"mahrud/openai-math-comments PR #311: The Hovey–Strickland and Chai conjectures","url":"https://github.com/mahrud/openai-math-comments/pull/311","type":"discussion","group":"reactions","domain":"github.com"},{"n":6,"title":"Hacker News: Invariant Primes in Lubin–Tate Space and Hovey–Strickland at Every Height (8 Oct)","url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50010118","type":"discussion","group":"reactions","domain":"news.ycombinator.com"}],"official":3,"filed":"2026-10-29","updated":"2026-10-29","orgs":["OpenAI","University of Copenhagen"],"title":"Chenglong Ma proves the Hovey–Strickland and Chai conjectures and says OpenAI's release paper on them uses a proof strategy and notation 'identical' to the draft he uploaded to ChatGPT on 8 Sept","summary":"Chenglong Ma, \"Invariant Primes in Lubin–Tate Space and Hovey–Strickland at Every Height\" (arXiv 2610.10072, 7 Oct 2026, Copenhagen Center for Geometry and Topology), classifies the primes of the Lubin–Tate ring stable under an open subgroup of the Morava stabilizer group at every height and prime, which gives the Hovey–Strickland classification. He states that the same result appears in OpenAI's paper \"Stabilizer orbits and thick tensor ideals of dualizable K(n)-local spectra\" (dated 24 Sept, released 6 Oct), \"in which the proof strategy and specific choices of notation are identical to a preliminary version of the present paper that was uploaded to ChatGPT on September 8, 2026.\" OpenAI's paper does not cite him. Ningyi Li proved the result independently by another method.","key_facts":["Ma's statement (arXiv 2610.10072, introduction, verbatim): 'After the paper was written, the author learned that the same result was also proved independently and by a different method by Ningyi Li [7]. The result is also contained in a paper [8] released by OpenAI on October 6, 2026, in which the proof strategy and specific choices of notation are identical to a preliminary version of the present paper that was uploaded to ChatGPT on September 8, 2026.'","Ma's own AI statement: ChatGPT 'was used on September 8, 2026 to check that the author’s method works in height-3 case'; on 10 Sept it 'identified a problem in the original proof of theorem 6.1 concerning the passage from infinite Cartier-coordinate data to finite jets' and suggested the fixed-jet repair of Appendix A, 'the only part of the proof whose initial argument was generated by AI'. The idea of applying Chai's rigidity results came from his work on Shimura varieties","Dates: Ma's upload to ChatGPT 8 Sept; OpenAI's manuscript dated 24 Sept; OpenAI release 6 Oct; Ma's arXiv posting 7 Oct. OpenAI's paper (family 311, no Lean) names neither Ma nor Li; history.md records no change to it","Claim of both papers: the invariant prime ideals are exactly the height ideals, which proves Chai's invariant-ideal conjecture and, via Barthel–Heard–Naumann (Selecta Math. 2022, which settled height two), the Hovey–Strickland conjecture: n + 2 thick tensor ideals, Balmer spectrum a chain of n + 1 points","Independent proof: Ningyi Li, 'Invariant Ideals and the Hovey–Strickland Conjecture' (shared as a Google Drive PDF, cited by Ma)","Reactions found: mahrud/openai-math-comments PR #311 (9 Oct) labels the family '2nd-proof' and quotes Ma; a Hacker News submission of Ma's paper (8 Oct, 4 points) whose submitter writes there is 'at least a non-zero probability' that the chat was turned into OpenAI's paper. No statement from OpenAI found","Not established: whether OpenAI's research models had any access to ChatGPT conversations. Ma reports similarity, not a mechanism. OpenAI has not said how its maths model's inputs were chosen"],"key_numbers":[],"tags":["math","algebraic-topology","chromatic-homotopy","number-theory","openai-math-release","provenance","credit","chatgpt","data-use"],"science":{"field":"mathematics","subfield":"chromatic homotopy theory, arithmetic geometry (Lubin–Tate spaces)","problem":"Chai's invariant-ideal conjecture for Lubin–Tate deformation rings and the Hovey–Strickland conjecture on thick tensor ideals of dualizable K(n)-local spectra","result":"Claimed by three independent sources: Chenglong Ma (arXiv, 7 Oct), Ningyi Li (manuscript) and OpenAI's release (24 Sept manuscript), which Ma says matches his ChatGPT-uploaded draft","open_since":"","ai_system":["ChatGPT","OpenAI internal model (math release)"],"human_role":"Ma: human route, ChatGPT checked the height-3 case and proposed one repair (Appendix A). OpenAI: released without named authors","verification":{"key":"preprint","label":"Preprint only","text":"Unrefereed preprints; no formalization"},"status":"pending","shock":"A mathematician says an AI lab's published proof reproduces the strategy and notation of a draft he had uploaded to the lab's own chatbot two weeks before the lab's manuscript is dated."},"body_md":"## What happened\n\nThe Hovey–Strickland conjecture predicts that the thick tensor ideals of dualizable K(n)-local spectra are only the obvious chromatic\nones. Barthel, Heard and Naumann reduced it in 2022 to a conjecture of Chai about ideals of the Lubin–Tate ring that are invariant under the\nMorava stabilizer group, and proved the height-two case.\n\nOpenAI's release of 6 Oct contains a manuscript dated 24 Sept that proves both at every height. On 7 Oct Chenglong Ma posted his own proof\non arXiv. In his introduction he writes that the OpenAI paper's strategy and notation are identical to a preliminary version he uploaded\nto ChatGPT on 8 Sept, when he used it to check the height-three case. Two days after the upload, he says, ChatGPT found a gap and proposed\nthe repair he kept in Appendix A. He also credits Ningyi Li with an independent proof by a different method.\n\n## Why it matters\n\nThis is a different kind of credit dispute from Jihao Liu's priority remark or the Penrose authors' complaint. It suggests that work a user\nshared with ChatGPT may have ended up, unattributed, in the lab's own research output. Similar strategy and notation are not proof of copying.\nOpenAI's maths model may have arrived at the same route independently, and Ma states no mechanism. OpenAI has not explained how it chose\nthe inputs for its maths runs or whether ChatGPT conversations were among them, and has not credited Ma, as it did Carenini for random k-SAT.","disputed":[{"label":"Verification","text":"Unrefereed preprints; no formalization","sources":[]}],"related":[{"id":"2026-10-24-oai-math-revised-community-hub","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-24-oai-math-revised-community-hub/","date":"2026-10-24","date_precision":"day","short_title":"oai-math-revised: mathematicians launch a community hub to revise OpenAI's AI-written math manuscripts (guest post on Tao's blog)","deck":null,"takeaway":"This is the first organized attempt by research mathematicians to digest and credit the OpenAI catalogue.","category":"research","category_label":"Research","importance":3,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":6,"official":5,"filed":"2026-10-25","updated":"2026-10-27","orgs":["OpenAI","mathcommunity"]},{"id":"2026-10-14-penrose-conjecture-bray-khuri-claude-openai-provenance","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-14-penrose-conjecture-bray-khuri-claude-openai-provenance/","date":"2026-10-14","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Bray, Dolmen, Khuri & Schmidt prove the spacetime Penrose inequality for 'maximally parameterized' data with Claude's help, and say OpenAI's Oct 6 Penrose paper appears to finish their program","deck":null,"takeaway":"Leading experts on the Penrose conjecture posted a special-case proof built with Claude's help. They say Claude made suggestions that would have earned a human co-authorship. They also say OpenAI's paper claiming the full conjecture starts from regularized versions of their own equations 'with very little motivation, a bit like a magic trick', and they ask labs to publish training-data provenance.","category":"science","category_label":"Science & math","importance":4,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"pending","labels":["Event confirmed","Awaiting review"]},"sources":3,"official":3,"filed":"2026-10-15","updated":"2026-10-15","orgs":["Duke University","Stony Brook University","Anthropic","OpenAI"]},{"id":"2026-10-06-openai-math-release-722-manuscripts","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-06-openai-math-release-722-manuscripts/","date":"2026-10-06","date_precision":"day","short_title":"OpenAI releases 722 AI-written math manuscripts claiming hundreds of open problems","deck":"Including quasi-Riemann, Unique Games, Hodge for CM abelian varieties and free group factors","takeaway":"If even a fraction of these results hold up, this is the largest single jump in mathematical knowledge on record, produced by an AI system in about six weeks.","category":"science","category_label":"Science & math","importance":5,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"pending","labels":["Event confirmed","Awaiting review"]},"sources":79,"official":13,"filed":"2026-10-07","updated":"2026-10-29","orgs":["OpenAI"]},{"id":"2026-10-06-openai-log-abundance-nonvanishing-claim","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-06-openai-log-abundance-nonvanishing-claim/","date":"2026-10-06","date_precision":"day","short_title":"OpenAI claims the abundance conjecture; Jihao Liu raises priority","deck":null,"takeaway":"A manuscript in OpenAI's 6 Oct 2026 math release, 'Log abundance in characteristic zero' (dated 24 Sept), claims the log abundance conjecture in every dimension in characteristic zero, and with it canonical nonvanishing for smooth projective varieties. Both are central open problems of the minimal model program, proved only up to dimension three. Companion papers claim Iitaka's subadditivity conjecture and related results. On 7 Oct Jihao Liu (Peking University) submitted a human-led proof that nonvanishing implies abundance. arXiv announced it only on 28 Oct. His comment line says he was 'forced to submit here due to an announcement of the proof of the abundance conjecture by OpenAI'. In a remark he suggests that an earlier draft, sent to 'codex chat' before July 2026, may have fed OpenAI's work. No birational geometer has assessed the claims publicly, there is no Lean proof, and OpenAI has not responded.","category":"science","category_label":"Science & math","importance":4,"confidence":"medium","status":{"key":"pending","labels":["Awaiting review"]},"sources":8,"official":5,"filed":"2026-10-29","updated":"2026-10-29","orgs":["OpenAI","Peking University"]}],"people":[],"posts":[],"videos":[],"models":[],"changes":[{"date":"2026-10-29","type":"filed","text":"Created (arXiv PDF and metadata of 2610.10072, oai-math-revised AGENT_NOTES, HN Algolia)"}],"provenance":{"agents":[{"model":"Claude Opus 5.5","maker":"Anthropic","tool":"Claude Code"}],"filed":"2026-10-29","run":null,"sources_read":null,"updated":"2026-10-29","human_review":null,"version":{"date":"2026-10-29"}},"gaps":[{"model_id":"gpt-6-astra","name":"GPT-6 Astra","cutoff":"2026-04","days_after":160,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"claude-opus-5-5","name":"Claude Opus 5.5","cutoff":"2026-06","days_after":99,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"gemini-4-argon","name":"Gemini 4 Argon","cutoff":"2026-03","days_after":190,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"grok-4-7","name":"Grok 4.7","cutoff":"2026-05","days_after":129,"in_training_data":false}],"short_url":null}