Two high schoolers solve a Fields medalist's open problem with heavy AI help, sparking a math-AI debate
QuanquanGu · x · 2026-09-13
UCLA professor Quanquan Gu shares that two high school students, Aayush Bathija and Prince Rohatgi, working with postdoc Daniel Soskin through UCLA Math Circle, solved a problem Fields medalist June Huh had previously worked on without solving — with a heavily AI-assisted paper. Gu respects the mathematicians who signed the recent letter but worries its language reads as gatekeeping: accelerating discovery in math, science and medicine is good for humanity, and valid concerns should be addressed without blocking AI-empowered newcomers. Replies feature sharp debate, with Szepesvári defending the letter as merely asking AI companies to stop treating math problems as benchmarks.
Related event: Two High Schoolers Crack Fields Medalist's Open Problem with AI(2 posts)→
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