‘Immature playground boasting’: Mathematicians uneasy at OpenAI’s latest scalp

It was a week that left mathematicians reeling. Hot on the heels of a flurry of cases of artificial intelligence furthering the field, OpenAI declared a major scalp: its latest AI model had cracked a Millennium Prize Problem, a puzzle with a $1m reward that had defied human brains for decades.

The achievement bore little resemblance to how mathematical problems normally fall. A near-trillion dollar private company had unleashed 10,000 agents – AI systems that carry out tasks autonomously – on the problem. The bill was estimated at $15m.

The trajectory towards AI capable of superhuman maths has long been clear, but to nail such a substantial problem so swiftly sent shock waves through the field. Mathematicians are asking what will be left for themif works in progress are hoovered up and claimed by others, and how they should train the next generation when even fiendish assignments can be solved at the press of a button.

“I feel slightly shell-shocked,” said Prof Colva Roney-Dougal, the head of pure mathematics at the University of St Andrews. At a recent public lecture, she said she believed that AI was unlikely to do anything remarkable soon. “Three months later, I’m totally wrong,” she says. “We’re all just waiting to see what happens. It’s coming so fast.”