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Re:Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science by einpoklum on Saturday August 01, 2026 @04:19AM (#49132290)
Also, have there been examples of researchers not affiliated with OpenAI (or another LLM creator), who have done something similar?

Another question I have is whether or not OpenAI 'simply' hired capable combinatorics researchers to work on problems, and they have, and the use of the model is incidental / secondary to their work.

Re:Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science by energy123 on Saturday August 01, 2026 @06:23AM (#49133011)
Many less important Erdos problems have been solved by amateurs prompting ChatGPT 5.{3,4,5,6} Pro using their $200 subscription.
Re:Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science by traes on Saturday August 01, 2026 @04:27AM (#49132342)
> Also, have there been examples of researchers not affiliated with OpenAI (or another LLM creator), who have done something similar?

A couple small ones that I've seen (example here [0]), but not anything of the magnitude that OpenAI and Anthropic have put out. Likely just related to token limits.

> Another question I have is whether or not OpenAI 'simply' hired capable combinatorics researchers to work on problems, and they have, and the use of the model is incidental / secondary to their work.

I think their output has reached a level that precludes this possibility, but I of course don't have any hard proof.

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/1uxj3cy/after_openais...

Re:Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science by irthomasthomas on Saturday August 01, 2026 @07:07AM (#49133303)
Why you think that?
Re:Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science by azan_ on Saturday August 01, 2026 @08:02AM (#49133664)
I guess that's because there are serious problems on which many professional mathematicians worked on years. If it was just a matter of hiring an expert, they would've been solved long time ago.
Re:Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science by irthomasthomas on Saturday August 01, 2026 @08:07AM (#49133709)
I guess expert+chatgpt beats chatgpt alone, so why not hire top experts to drive the search?
Re:Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science by kittoes on Saturday August 01, 2026 @10:18AM (#49134684)
https://blob.byteterrace.com/public/bds-theorem.html

I have no affiliation whatsoever with any AI company, nor any formal education outside high school, for what it's worth. Simply being curious and persistent can get you quite far in my anecdotal experience.

Re:Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science by brighteyes on Saturday August 01, 2026 @10:38AM (#49134850)
Yes, here is another example of major work in this area:

https://arxiv.org/html/2605.22763v1

> Our most capable agent autonomously resolved 9 of 353 open Erdős problems at the per-problem cost of a few hundred dollars, proved 44/492 OEIS conjectures

Re:Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science by einpoklum on Saturday August 01, 2026 @10:46AM (#49134910)
The actual quote:

> Our full-featured agent autonomously solved 9 Erdős problems out of 353 attempted, including two questions that had been open for 56 years

Note _had_ been open, not _have_ been open. Can you clarify?

Re:Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science by jsnell on Saturday August 01, 2026 @11:02AM (#49135059)
The original was an actual quote?

But "had" still doesn't mean what you are implying: once the model solved the problems and the solutions were verified, the problems weren't open any more, so a later description using the past tense is totally consistent.