Role at the time: Mathematician describing his own experience and ethical concerns in a personal public post
"De-identification may remove a name; it does not remove the intellectual content of a mathematical idea."
Thom challenged OpenAI's explanation of research-related user data and requested evidence supporting its denials. Drawing on his own experience, he argued that de-identification would not eliminate the ethical issue if unpublished mathematical ideas were used to compete with their authors.
- First noted
- September 10, 2026
- Published here
- September 10, 2026
- People and groups discussed
- OpenAI
Why we used this label
He questions the sufficiency and transparency of OpenAI's account while presenting the ethical objection conditionally. This is adjacent firsthand context, not proof of theft or misconduct in the Buckmaster authorship dispute.
Context
Before the quotation
Thom posted in a discussion connected to Buckmaster's account and OpenAI's explanations concerning research and user data.
After the quotation
The post does not independently establish what data were used or whether misconduct occurred. The displayed September 9 06:10 time lacks a timezone; 12:00Z is a date-only placeholder.
Sources
Thom describes his own interactions involving unpublished mathematical research and challenges the transparency of OpenAI's data-use explanations. His ethical concern is conditional on nonpublic user research having been used; this post does not establish that such use or theft occurred in the Buckmaster dispute. Thom is the author, not another mathematician who reposted the thread. The page displays September 9 at 06:10 without a timezone; 12:00Z is a date-only placeholder, not a verified exact posting time.