Source: Latent Space
OpenAI's internal model found a counterexample to the Erdős unit distance conjecture, unsolved since 1946. This shows language models can perform genuine mathematical discovery, not just pattern matching on training data. The work moves AI from solving textbook problems to generating novel proofs that human mathematicians then verify. This changes which problems are worth assigning to humans versus machines. The speed of this breakthrough—discovered in May, now public—indicates AI assistance is becoming essential infrastructure for pure mathematics research.