Mathematicians Are The Canary Down The AI Coal Mine

OpenAI claims a swarm of AI agents has solved the Navier-Stokes problem, one of the hardest unsolved questions in mathematics, with a $1 million prize attached. Then it released more than 700 more mathematical manuscripts, including claims touching the Riemann hypothesis, faster than anyone can check them. Mathematicians are not happy, and the reason goes far beyond the money.

In this episode of The Rest of Science, mathematician and fluid dynamicist Hannah Fry takes Michael Stevens through the equations that describe everything that flows, from the blood in your veins to a rocket leaving the atmosphere. Then she tells him why this story has turned the vocation of mathematics upside down.

Ten thousand AI agents. Millions of messages. One tiny term in the equation that nobody wanted to look at, until it unlocked the problem. But did AI really solve a million dollar problem? Why are some mathematicians accusing the models of stealing their work? And how might a proof that is completely correct be the least satisfying result in the history of maths?

Along the way, Hannah un-mixes a glass of dye with nothing but corn syrup and patience, and the pair ask what happens to curiosity when the answers arrive faster than the understanding.

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