OpenAI drops 372 math proofs, and mathematicians are grieving
genmon · x · 2026-10-11
Matt Webb (Interconnected) reflects on OpenAI's release of 372 math proofs, following the Navier-Stokes proof controversy a month earlier — a "shock and awe" PR strategy.
- Some results are considered major: the 4-D Kakeya problem, just after Hong Wang won the Fields medal this summer for the 3-D proof — deemed Fields-medal-worthy
- Mathematicians are reeling: one spent thousands of hours on a solved problem ("like hearing an ex-girlfriend died in a car crash"); another says every problem in their lectures, papers, and grant applications is now solved
- Webb contrasts builders (who welcome AI acceleration) with mathematicians-as-miners, whose intellectual frontier just collapsed
- He wonders what "being a mathematician" becomes
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