Noah Smith: The end of the age of heroes as AI nears superhuman math
inductionheads · x · 2026-09-13
Noah Smith's essay "The end of the age of heroes" frames OpenAI's claim that its new model Astra solved ten major open math and theoretical CS problems as another man-vs-machine milestone, echoing the mathematicians' open letter.
Key points:
- Traces a lineage from human calculators displaced by machines to Kasparov and Lee Sedol's losses;
- Consensus holds these are stunning breakthroughs, though AI may excel at combining literature rather than truly novel leaps — DeepMind's Tom Zahavy: "LLMs can't jump";
- Despite that possible general limitation, the trend line is clear: AI will soon be better at math than any human.
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