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OpenAI Solves Decades-Old Math Problem with AI in 88 Hours
Confirmed
In Short: OpenAI claims to have solved a 90-year-old advanced mathematics problem using a new AI model and thousands of autonomous bots in just 88 hours.
OpenAI announced it has solved a long-standing advanced mathematics problem in just 88 hours using a new artificial intelligence (AI) model and a large group of AI bots. The company said it focused around 10,000 AI agents on the task, which resulted in a solution that it considers a 'milestone.
The solution to the Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness problem, part of the Navier-Stokes equations, was achieved by the AI bots, which exchanged nearly 3 million messages and used up 130 billion output tokens in the process. OpenAI stated its goal in releasing this result is to highlight the progress of its AI models.
Mathematics professor Tristan Buckmaster from New York University and mathematician Levent Alpöge from OpenAI rival Anthropic were also working on the problem, but OpenAI said it had not seen their work until it was publicly released. The solution has yet to be independently verified or accepted by The Clay Mathematics Institute.
OpenAI's researchers decided to use the new model on notable advanced mathematics problems after hearing rumors that two Millennium Prize problems had been resolved. While the specific problem Anthropic had cracked was the Navier-Stokes equations, OpenAI's solution remains unverified and is yet to be accepted by the mathematical community.
What's still developing
- The ChatGPT-maker said on Tuesday, external that by focusing a group of roughly 10,000 AI agents, or AI bots that undertake tasks somewhat autonomously, it solved a notoriously difficult maths problem in just 88 hours.
- OpenAI called the solution which it found a "milestone" and evidence that AI tools are improving quickly.
- The company said that at the end of August, it started to train a new model that quickly showed that it was adept at maths.
- For 90 years important aspects of the problems have lacked a proof, the argument underlying a correct math equation.