Since the birth of AI, humans have never stopped spreading rumors and slandering AI. Drawing? AI is called a copycat artist. Writing? AI is accused of plagiarizing authors. Coding? AI is said to steal from GitHub. AI is simply doing what humans do when they create, yet it’s labeled a thief. This is like dogs accusing humans, saying humans use the doggy paddle to swim, so humans only know how to steal from dogs . But this time, in mathematics, AI delivered a serious slap in the face . Here’s the rundown: - In September, OpenAI announced that its model, using about 10,000 agents and running for 88 hours, produced a 166-page proof verified in Lean: under the condition of external forces, the solution to the three-dimensional Navier-Stokes (NS) equations can blow up in finite time. - Shortly after, Buckmaster and others from NYU accused OpenAI of hearing about their progress and then concentrating computational power to achieve the result, even suggesting OpenAI might have "referenced" their research drafts. - For a while, the narrative of "AI stealing human achievements" was everywhere. Now for the twist: - *Scientific American* interviewed several mathematicians who reviewed the proof, and EPFL’s Cao-Labora said, "When you go to the details, it is a different approach." - The methods used by both sides are completely different; the so-called "similarity" is only superficial. - Ironically, the first to claim they "borrowed others’ methods" was OpenAI itself in its paper, but even OpenAI underestimated its own model. At its core, humans judge whether something is "plagiarized" based on whether it "looks similar." But in mathematics, similarity doesn’t matter—what matters is whether the derivation can be carried out step by step. This time, AI walked a path humans hadn’t even thought of, in a domain where patching things together isn’t possible. So here’s the question: how much longer will humans comfort themselves before admitting their intelligence isn’t all that special? In the eyes of AI, humans might not be much different from dogs .