Mathematician Alex Kontorovich: IMO is 'too easy' for AI now — labs will quit headline math next
AlexKontorovich · x · 2026-09-05
Rutgers math professor Alex Kontorovich recounts: two summers ago AlphaProof missed an IMO gold medal by one point; last summer half a dozen labs claimed gold-level performance. He predicted zero systems would chase gold this summer — because nobody cares anymore, and the IMO reverts to something 17-year-olds do.
He says he was largely right: the IMO has gone quiet because it's 'just too easy.' His next prediction: the number of major math problems labs publicize solving next summer will also be zero — not because they can't, but because such problems will return to being the work of professors, postdocs, and grad students.
More from AGI Musings
- People hold two incoherent AGI beliefs at once, researcher argues — danfaggella · 2026-09-05
- Mathematicians debate proof value and incentives as AI enters theorem-proving — marc_lelarge · 2026-09-05
- A 'Holographic' Intrinsic Ethics Proposal: Distributed Read-Only Primitives to Stop Self-Rewriting — GlenBradley · 2026-09-05
- Gary Marcus: reduced AI monitoring could have prevented incidents, OpenAI not candid — GaryMarcus · 2026-09-05
- Post-AI work means a return to pre-industrial relational labor, argues Asterisk essay — GavinSBaker · 2026-09-05
- Who Defines the Moment an AI Becomes "Too Intelligent to Legally Exist"? — VraserX · 2026-09-05