The Mathocalypse
a day ago
- OpenAI released 372 major mathematical results, including a proof of the Unique Games Conjecture (UGC), which complexity theorist Dana Moshkovitz had worked on for years.
- The proofs are accompanied by Lean certificates but are currently incomprehensible to humans, described as poorly written and alien in style.
- Other breakthroughs include L=BPL, a new Fourier transform algorithm, a positive solution to the Unitary Synthesis Problem, and many more across various fields.
- Two models for communicating AI math breakthroughs emerged: OpenAI's raw dump and Anthropic's collaborative approach with select human mathematicians.
- The AI model used was OpenAI's latest internal model, solving about 5% of 8,000 longstanding open problems with roughly 3 hours of compute each.
- The mathematical community struggles to digest and validate these results, with metaphors comparing the situation to being teleported to a mountain peak without context.
- Despite skepticism, the author argues that these developments are real and significant, representing a 'Mathocalypse' that transforms the discipline.