How a reasoning model cracked an 80-year-old math problem - Episode 20

Last month AI found something mathematicians had missed for decades. Reasoning researchers Alexander Wei, Hongxun Wu, and Lijie Chen join the podcast to discuss how a general-purpose model helped disprove an 80-year-old conjecture from famed mathematician Paul Erdős. They walk through the moment the result started looking real, what it took to verify the proof, and what’s happened since sharing the discovery with the world. They also explore what this means for the future of math and for researchers learning to work with AI.

Chapters

0:44 AI and the International Math Olympiad and International Olympiad of Informatics

6:35 An OpenAI model disproves the Erdős unit distance conjecture

8:33 Running the model and checking the proof

11:04 Why general models matter for discovery

15:55 Creativity, tools, and how the proof worked

18:25 Why AI should feel empowering for mathematicians

22:31 Advice for researchers using AI

27:24 What comes next for math and AI research

37:30 Cryptography, quantum computing, and the future

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