Sébastien Bubeck denies asking to remove a mathematician's authorship credit
Sébastien BubeckOpenAI participant giving his firsthand account
Says the offer concerned OpenAI's proof and disputes the account of coercion.
Responding to
Bubeck says the disputed authorship proposal concerned a rewrite of OpenAI's proof, not removing Alpöge from his own work.
“I never ever asked for Levent to be removed from authorship of his own work”
Original post
Where this statement fits
Did OpenAI improperly pressure mathematicians over authorship and credit?
Tristan Buckmaster describes pressure over authorship and publication during discussions about competing AI-assisted mathematics results. Sébastien Bubeck disputes that characterization and says the proposed authorship concerned OpenAI's own proof. His apology for career-related wording does not settle the disagreement. Researchers and commentators divide over whether the negotiations were appropriate, while raising a separate dispute about the treatment of unpublished user research.
Source and context
Original post
About this source
Includes authorship context, apology for career wording and continued rejection of the allegations. Technical follow-up is included in the captured thread.
Before the quotation
Responds to Buckmaster's published account.
After the quotation
Apologizes for the career wording and says he retracted it immediately; maintains that he intended to help, not threaten.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
Direct counter-characterization, with a limited apology rather than a withdrawal of his defense.
- Recorded on
- Published here
- People and groups discussed
- Tristan Buckmaster
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- The Dispute Index
- Title
- Sébastien Bubeck denies asking to remove a mathematician's authorship credit
- First published
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- https://disputeindex.com/events/285-says-the-offer-concerned-openai-s-proof-and
Last updated marks the most recent saved version of this published statement.
The Dispute Index. "Sébastien Bubeck denies asking to remove a mathematician's authorship credit". First published: 2026-09-10. Last updated: 2026-09-30. https://disputeindex.com/events/285-says-the-offer-concerned-openai-s-proof-and