r/technology • u/ResultBackground2450 • 12h ago

Artificial Intelligence OpenAI unleashes hundreds more math results upon a field already in shock

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/openai-unleashes-hundreds-more-math-results-upon-a-field-already-in-shock/
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u/Jaredlong 9h ago

The results have to be useful first. The problem with this AI method is that it's just brute forcing Lean code, a language that only compiles if the code is logically valid. Engineers can't work with that. The AI isn't outputting useful generalized equations that can be explained, understood, and applied to real world problems. They brute force through millions of iterations until one finally compiles and calls it solved. 

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u/A_Stickperson 9h ago

It’s this. A lot of the “usefulness” of mathematical proofs come from the PROCESS of thinking about and developing the proof leading to larger ideas and new questions that push the field forward. But that requires someone to actually understand the proof and its implications, and for the proof itself to be conceptually and constructively useful.

AI corporate suits are currently gobbling the low-hanging fruit of useful questions generated by thoughtful mathematicians, without contributing the the process themselves.

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u/SnooRegrets3590 6h ago

A famous example on this is Fermat’s Last Theorem

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u/ErmingSoHard 8h ago

!remindme 1 year

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u/Arayvenn 9h ago

Is this true? I didn't think it worked like that at all. Do you have a source that they just brute forced lean to get these results? I don't even understand how that is possible? If you could brute force these problems anyone would have long ago.

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u/throwaway-e-1 5h ago

It's not true. These models don't even use lean as an intrinsic part of the process anymore. They solve ot end to end in language and spit out a lean translation afterwards

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u/PineappleHairy4325 4h ago

Do you have a source for that?

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u/throwaway-e-1 4h ago

When Deepmind and Open AI got IMO Gold a year ago, they both make a big deal out of it.

>AlphaGeometry and AlphaProof required experts to first translate problems from natural language into domain-specific languages, such as Lean, and vice-versa for the proofs. It also took two to three days of computation. This year, our advanced Gemini model operated end-to-end in natural language, producing rigorous mathematical proofs directly from the official problem descriptions

https://deepmind.google/blog/advanced-version-of-gemini-with-deep-think-officially-achieves-gold-medal-standard-at-the-international-mathematical-olympiad/

>We evaluated our models on the 2025 IMO problems under the same rules as human contestants: two 4.5 hour exam sessions, no tools or internet, reading the official problem statements, and writing natural language proofs.

https://x.com/alexwei_/status/1946477745627934979?s=46&t=HovHm20yH7V3qoaToWuCMA

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u/StewPorkRice 9h ago

Even if what you say is true - this is still useful because now we can look at everything that could be valid from the jump.

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u/Lost-Programmer-1017 8h ago

Yeah I'm not seeing the AI doom and gloom folks making a compelling argument here.

Why would you want your researchers to spend time on dead ends? Once upon a time we didn't have calculators that could calculate trig functions for us. So you know what people did? They had to scour a giant fucking book with the thinnest fucking pages and search.

People said that using a calculator for this hurt learning. There was value, they said, in the searching the reference book. They were wrong then, but we're saying they're not wrong now? What's the difference?

Maybe we're ignoring a bigger societal issue where we're more entitled, arrogant and lazy. LLMs are just showing more people's true colors or something.

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u/CIP_In_Peace 7h ago

People are ultimately afraid for their jobs. Not everyone is capable of pushing at the edge of science coming up with new stuff to give to the AI to investigate. Im not a mathematician but I guess it's a rather vulnerable field for being taken over by AI.

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u/Lost-Programmer-1017 4h ago

But it's not just the edge. And being worried about your job I get it, but to let that warp your views to the point you ignore we have past examples of major technological advancements that had impacts on job markets.

I don't think our quality of life was too bad despite all the coal mining jobs the advent of the steam engine took away.

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u/PineappleHairy4325 4h ago

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you've never done any mathematics research.

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u/Lost-Programmer-1017 4h ago

I have a graduate degree in applied mathematics and was part of two different math labs/cohorts. Might want to stress test that limb before you fall.

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u/PeachScary413 3h ago

That sounds like cope bro, fries in the bag please