Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science
OpenAI's unreleased Astra model solved 10 decade-old unsolved math problems for under $2,000 each.
“He envisions a future of large-scale, decentralized collaborations between humans and machines, where complex mathematical tasks can be diced and sliced, with humans claiming the creative parts and AI doing the lion's share of the technical grunt work.”
OpenAI used an internal version of its next major model, Astra, to solve ten open mathematical problems — each stalled for over a decade — at under $2,000 per solution in token costs, publishing Lean 4 formalizations and a paper. This follows Anthropic's recent $100,000 cryptographic research run with Mythos Preview, marking an escalating race to demonstrate frontier AI on hard scientific problems. The results are provoking existential reflection in the math community and lending credibility to Terence Tao's vision of 'big mathematics' powered by human-AI collaboration.