An OpenAI model solved a famous math problem that stumped humans for 80 years
I tried to explain OpenAI’s solution more clearly than OpenAI did.
In mid-May, OpenAI announced that an internal AI model had disproved the Erdős unit distance conjecture, a famous problem in discrete geometry that had stumped human mathematicians for the last 80 years.
OpenAI gave several mathematicians early access to the result and published their reactions. Tim Gowers—who won the Fields Medal, the most prestigious prize in mathematics—wrote that “there is no doubt that the solution to the unit-distance problem is a milestone in AI mathematics.”
University of Toronto professor Daniel Litt wrote that “this is the first example of a result produced autonomously by an AI that I find exciting in itself, as opposed to as a leading indicator.”