OpenAI claims its new reasoning mannequin has produced an unique mathematical proof disproving a well-known unsolved conjecture in geometry, which was first posed by Paul Erdős in 1946.
If this sounds acquainted to you, it’s as a result of this isn’t the primary time OpenAI has made such a daring declare. Seven months ago, the AI big’s former VP Kevin Weil posted on X: “GPT-5 discovered options to 10 (!) beforehand unsolved Erdős issues and made progress on 11 others.”
It seems, GPT-5 didn’t really clear up these issues; it simply discovered options that already existed within the literature.
Taunts from rivals like Yann LeCun and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis adopted, and Weil promptly took down his untimely put up. In the present day, at the very least, it appears OpenAI didn’t make the identical mistake twice. Alongside the announcement, the corporate revealed companion remarks in assist of the disproof from mathematicians like Noga Alon, Melanie Wooden, and Thomas Bloom, who maintains the Erdos Problems website, and beforehand referred to as Weil’s put up “a dramatic misrepresentation.”
“For almost 80 years, mathematicians believed the absolute best options appeared roughly like sq. grids,” OpenAI posted on X. “An OpenAI mannequin has now disproved that perception, discovering a completely new household of constructions that performs higher.”
The corporate stated this marks “the primary time AI has autonomously solved a outstanding open downside central to a subject of arithmetic.” The proof, per OpenAI, got here from a brand new general-purpose reasoning mannequin, not a system particularly designed to unravel math issues and even this downside particularly.
OpenAI says that is important as a result of it means AI techniques are actually extra able to holding collectively lengthy, troublesome chains of reasoning and connecting concepts throughout fields in methods researchers might not have beforehand explored. That has implications for biology, physics, engineering, and medication.
“AI helps us to extra absolutely discover the cathedral of arithmetic we’ve constructed over the centuries,” Bloom stated in an announcement. “What different unseen wonders are ready within the wings?”
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