tech
OpenAI makes breakthrough on 80-year-old maths problem
Company says work on Paul Erdős planar unit distance problem shows advance in AI reasoning
TL;DR
- OpenAI's AI model has made a breakthrough on the planar unit distance problem, first posed by mathematician Paul Erdős in 1946.
- The AI disproved the long-held belief that solutions would resemble square grids, discovering a new family of constructions.
- While the AI showed the proposed limit was too low, it did not provide a new answer for the rate at which pairs of dots increase.
- This advance was made by a general-purpose reasoning model, not one specifically trained for mathematics.
- Mathematicians, including Thomas Bloom and Tim Gowers, have validated the work, calling it a milestone and emphasizing the continued role of human researchers in refining AI-generated proofs.