130B tokens for Navier-Stokes: why massive AI effort didn't yield new theory
akbirthko · x · 2026-09-20
X user intoverflow argues that solving Navier-Stokes consumed roughly 130 billion output tokens — about 4,000 person-years of effort by Dwarkesh's estimate, 100x more than a human typically needs to earn a Fields Medal. While impressive in wall-clock time, this level of compute didn't produce a new theory or cleaner approach, which he takes as evidence of frontier model limitations. Replying, akbirthko pushes back that tokens != human effort, since much of human work is variance reduction and priors.
Related event: AI Solves Navier-Stokes with 130B Tokens, Sparking Debate(2 posts)→
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