AI tools helped solve around 100 extant problems left behind by one of the 20th century’s greatest mathematicians.
Hungarian Paul Erdős proposed 1,179 conjectures — unproved math statements, such as “For every n ≥ 2, you can write 4/n as the sum of three unit fractions.” Since his death in 1996, scientists have tried to prove or disprove them.
One began using ChatGPT, which superpowered efforts, at first by finding existing solutions to similar problems in a “souped-up literature search,” Scientific American reported. But in at least two cases, the AI tool was “able to construct an original and valid proof” to unsolved conjectures. This year could be the first in which AI becomes a named contributor on math papers, researchers said.