OpenAI Releases 372 More Math Results as Skeptical Mathematicians Ask for Proof

Summary

The floodgates are open. Right on the heels of OpenAI’s new large language model producing the biggest math breakthrough in two decades, the company just released no less than 372 results from the same model. Each resolves or makes substantial progress on a major open question in mathematics or theoretical computer science, the company says. OpenAI revealed the results in a GitHub repository at 6 P.M. EDT. The deluge will take mathematicians months to parse through and understand—including to determine whether the proofs contain novel and important ideas or are mostly mash-ups of existing techniques. But many of the results have already been verified in Lean—a programming language that validates a proof’s logic—and are therefore all but certain to be correct. Among the results claimed are a solution to the four-dimensional Kakeya conjecture, improvements on some of the world’s most important computer algorithms, and actual progress toward math’s scariest problem, the Riemann hypothesis. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. A spokesperson for OpenAI told Scientific American that the new model—which the company has not released to the public—produced almost every one of the results in response to a single prompt handed to a single AI agent. This would be a striking difference from OpenAI’s earlier blockbuster solution to the Navier-Stokes problem, which was produced through the collective efforts of a 10,000-strong agentic swarm that cost millions of dollars in computing power. If true, it would mean that unprecedented mathematical power could soon be accessible to anyone. But OpenAI’s reputation, among mathematicians, for bold claims and little transparency is causing considerable skepticism. “Until and unless they release the model and people can replicate their results, I think you should treat any claims about one-shotting problems with a single agent as unverified,” says Andrew Sutherland, a mathematician at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “We should ask for receipts.” (The OpenAI spokesperson also told Scientific American that some results might have taken multiple attempts.) OpenAI’s handling of the Navier-S…