‘Immature playground boasting’: Mathematicians uneasy at OpenAI’s latest scalp

As OpenAI model cracks Millennium Prize Problem that puzzled experts for decades, many feel shocked at pace of change

It was a week that left mathematicians reeling. Hot on the heels of a flurry of cases of artificial intelligence furthering the field, OpenAI declared a major scalp: its latest AI model had cracked a Millennium Prize Problem, a puzzle with a $1m reward that had defied human brains for decades.

The achievement bore little resemblance to how mathematical problems normally fall. A near-trillion dollar private company had unleashed 10,000 agents – AI systems that carry out tasks autonomously – on the problem. The bill was estimated at $15m.