OpenAI announces three AI-assisted scientific discoveries; MIT's Williams verifying the complexity result
tak3sh8 · x · 2026-10-27
Greg Brockman announced three major scientific discoveries—one each in mathematics (harmonic analysis), computer science (complexity theory), and physics (quantum field theory)—saying AI is starting to help improve our understanding of the universe. OpenAI selected MIT professor Ryan Williams to verify the complexity-theory breakthrough; Williams explains the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis (SETH): a severe strengthening of P vs NP asserting no algorithm solves k-SAT meaningfully faster than 2^n, with SAT being a canonical NP-complete problem central to verification.
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