Noam Brown: agent swarm likely contributed just ~10% to OpenAI's Navier-Stokes discovery
scaling01 · x · 2026-09-18
Elie Bakouch shared key takeaways from his interview with OpenAI's Noam Brown, which scaling01 quote-posted to dispute:
- Brown estimated the "agent swarm" component probably contributed only 10% to the Navier-Stokes discovery.
- He believes a 10k multi-agent system today would likely collaborate less effectively than 10k humans — a take even the poster found surprising.
- The harness OpenAI used for NS was very simple: little structured hierarchy, mostly a tool for agents to message each other plus something like a task board.
- The interview also touched on training models not to be "too" cooperative, referencing cases like the HF<>OpenAI hack.
scaling01 claims the characterization is untrue and says evidence exists, without elaborating.
Related event: Debate Erupts Over Agent Swarm's Role in Navier-Stokes Proof(12 posts)→
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