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Re:Ask HN: Who gets credits on big math questions solved by ... by al_borland on Thursday July 16, 2026 @06:15PM (#48940985)
A months ago headlines read that ChatGPT “solved” an 80 year old Erdős problem.

I found Cal Newport’s take on this to be much more balanced. From what I remember, ChatGPT didn’t “solve” anything. It dumped out a bunch of text, that humans reviewed, and it gave them an idea for how to disprove a thing Erdős thought was true, but couldn’t prove.

https://youtu.be/fhZRWZ6J4k4

In cases like this, it seemed like the LLM got a lot more credit than it deserved. So I’m guessing it would go something like that.

Re:Ask HN: Who gets credits on big math questions solved by ... by vanuatu on Thursday July 16, 2026 @09:03PM (#48942248)
LLMs are increasingly solving math problems on their own, producing entire correct proofs

I like Cal but his takes consistently miss the slope of improvement of the technology

Re:Ask HN: Who gets credits on big math questions solved by ... by bobbiebarker2 on Friday July 17, 2026 @02:08PM (#48950360)
Yes, it's hard to tell what is real here because the AI labs are clearly engaging in extensive marketing and advertising to shape public perception. They need people to believe that these tools are more capable and more competent than they really are. It's also important that they control the narrative and push out counter-narratives that would hurt public perception of the tool, etc. tldr they are actively trying to manage the hype cycle.
Re:Ask HN: Who gets credits on big math questions solved by ... by soupspaces on Thursday July 16, 2026 @07:42PM (#48941732)
Euler
Re:Ask HN: Who gets credits on big math questions solved by ... by mkprc on Thursday July 16, 2026 @09:19PM (#48942351)
The (boring) answer to "who gets the prize?" is whoever the CMI decides gets the prize.

https://www.claymath.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/millenni...

Re:Ask HN: Who gets credits on big math questions solved by ... by Vav-Labs on Friday July 17, 2026 @01:57AM (#48943777)
LLMs are advanced tools , not creators. Just as we don't credit our computer or IDE as co-authors when writing code, we shouldn't credit AI for an engineer's or Math or any type work. If we start crediting tools, we'd logically have to credit the entire tech stack behind them.
Re:Ask HN: Who gets credits on big math questions solved by ... by gus_massa on Friday July 17, 2026 @01:01PM (#48949599)
1) Probably the guy/gal that wrote the prompt. I expect for now that in most case the AI needs some babysitting (like babysitting a PhD student).

2) Who pays the piper calls the tune.