OpenAI reportedly closes in on solving the Hodge conjecture, its second Millennium Prize Problem
decoder ·
OpenAI is reportedly nearing a solution to the Hodge conjecture, which would be its second of the seven famous Millennium Prize Problems. The conjecture asks whether certain geometric properties of shapes can always be described using simpler algebraic building blocks. An employee familiar with the matter expects a solution soon, although OpenAI could delay any announcement while it seeks to avoid a repeat of the public-relations crisis surrounding its still-unconfirmed Navier–Stokes result. For the Navier–Stokes work, OpenAI reportedly used a variant of its next pretrained model, codenamed “Doug,” at a likely cost of millions of dollars. Although chief researcher Jakub Pachocki had said the company would initially prioritize recursive self-improvement over mathematics, some employees apparently believe solving these problems could contribute to that goal. The mathematics community has reportedly reacted with more anger than admiration, and some mathematicians see AI as threatening their field.
decoder