OpenAI's 10,000 agents solved a Millennium Problem in 88 hours; DeepMind maps 9B DNA variants
Not Boring (Packy McCormick) · rss · 2026-09-11
Not Boring's Weekly Dose of Optimism #210 covers several major items:
- OpenAI publishes its Navier–Stokes proof: 10,000 AI agents, using an unreleased model more capable than GPT-6 Astra, worked 88 hours to produce a proposed solution to the Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness problem (forced version), plus 17 hours of Lean formalization; the proof runs 166 pages. Anthropic accused OpenAI of using their Codex conversation logs; Altman denied it but admitted rumors of Anthropic being close spurred the sprint.
- Google DeepMind released AlphaGenome Atlas: a 1-petabyte database predicting the molecular effects of 9 billion single-letter DNA variants, covering the 98% non-coding genome; it already helped Broad Institute researchers identify a predicted RNA-splicing-disrupting variant supporting an unresolved rare-disease case.
- Hermeus unveiled Ramjet-X: an expendable ramjet test vehicle air-launched from the reusable Quarterhorse, to be sold as Flight Test as a Service; integrated testing planned for 2027.
- Michael Levin published the revised, peer-reviewed Ingressing Minds: arguing minds are patterns in a structured nonphysical space and bodies — including computers — are interfaces through which minds enter the physical world, one of the strongest arguments yet that AI could become conscious.
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