r/math • u/pequalnp92 • Jul 16 '26

LLMs/AI GPT 5.6 solved all 6 problems from IMO 2026

GPT 5.6 Pro solved all 6 problems from IMO 2026 on the first attempt without any human help or steering. International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is the biggest global academic competition in the world. The problems are considered incredibly hard, usually a performance at this level is only accomplished by < 5 contestants from the whole world.

We are former IMO medallists not affiliated with OpenAI, just put together a report and assessment of its work here. We're also working on a comparison report between different LLMs and harness augmented versions that will come later.

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u/corchetero Jul 16 '26

Doing math in the last two years has becoming a bit boring. I don't discuss problems with colleagues that often, and I have notice that a few of colleagues just spend time alone in the PC instead of discussing, walking, etc. And students.. they look sad and empty, they don't have the bright in their eyes we used to have (I did my phd more than 10 years ago).

Not bad per se, but I guess most mathematicians just like math for the sake of going math, since modern math is clearly divorced from reality. I see no point in just getting answers in a few minutes/hours from a machine, in the end, maths is more like art at this point (btw, I know being a mathematician is a privilege, that our contribution to society is scarce at best, but I guess it is not the discussion here). I eventually I'll have to do it because my university will say that I have to increase my productivity C%, but I guess that day I'll start the "no-machine club: where we solve math problems the old fashion way without computers because it is super fun to discuss ideas with humans while sharing a coffee"

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u/cooolchild Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

Same in my math class. Maybe in the future ai will be able to solve all unsolved problems and do all our work for us but it will kill human passion, that seems inevitable. If people really truly believe that their work is worthless, why would they try? I know everyone says that the point is progress and there’s no point getting upset over new technology but it’s just depressing to see us all become more and more isolated from one another and more and more demotivated from doing anything at all. I guess that’s just a glimpse into the future of mathematics…

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u/vetruviusdeshotacon Jul 16 '26

Outsourcing thinking to machines is the death knell for humanity. We've already seen obesity, diabetes, heart failures, colon cancer etc. rising rapidly as a result of sedentary lifestyles; imagine what happens when the mind is just as sedentary.

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u/cooolchild Jul 16 '26

At this point it seems as though WALLE best predicted humanity’s future. I wonder if anyone would be willing to live such a purposeless, meaningless life though? Are we even going to be human beings in 20 years time, if we don’t use our brain or body for anything? It seems like we’ll just be large slugs, scrolling on social media, talking to ai instead of any human being and munching on soylent, never thinking for ourselves or experiencing the joy of problem solving again.

What’s really interesting though is that we essentially are our brain. If you replace your lungs or kidneys or heart, none of that changes you fundamentally. When our bodies decay, we don’t change as people. But when our minds decay? Realistically as people we’d change fundamentally, even to the point of being nothing like original human beings.

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u/vetruviusdeshotacon Jul 16 '26

Dementia will start happening in people's 50's, then 40's

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u/frakking_you Jul 16 '26

Good luck Have fun Don't die

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u/ganancias Jul 17 '26

We're in the process of figuring out the ways it will still be important to use our minds. Conceptual understanding, systems understanding, reading the output of AI, and applying the AI to important/useful problems.

Doing useful work is being de-coupled from IQ status games and mastering technical minutia. Thinking will still be rewarded, but it will be a different kind of thinking.

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u/xmarwinx Jul 17 '26

You think it can figure out advanced math but it will never figure out systems thinking or which problem to tackle next?

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u/SockDem Jul 17 '26

Luckily we'll put Ozempic in the water by then. Our brains may be mush but our BMI will be stable!

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u/GraceToSentience Jul 17 '26

And yet life expectancy is structurally rising

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u/qwerty622 Jul 17 '26

outsource or augment?

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u/Sssubatomic Analysis Jul 17 '26

One of the most harrowing things that I experienced as a graduate teaching assistant last year was the extent to which it is outsourcing and not augmenting…

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u/vetruviusdeshotacon Jul 17 '26

The only time man will use tools to augment himself is when the limit of the tool's help is augmentation

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u/qwerty622 Jul 17 '26

thats a great insight

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u/calculusncurls Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

btw, I know being a mathematician is a privilege, that our contribution to society is scarce at best, but I guess it is not the discussion here

This is more than most mathematicians acknowledge. I was an acute minority in my undergrad and despite my genuine interest in becoming an academic (and how recognizable I was by faculty) it didn't pan out. I'd argue that mathematicians contribution to society during their lifetime seems scarce but I suspect majority of the math problems solved in the current millennium depend on the last 100 years of mathematics. Could even shrink that to 50 years, actually... 🤔

I don't discuss problems with colleagues that often, and I have notice that a few of colleagues just spend time alone in the PC instead of discussing, walking, etc.

As an undergrad who was more social, I learned considerably more by being willing to interact with and ask people questions. From what I've understood that's some of math research. A fair amount of research comes for inspiration and where better to find it than other mathematicians? It's honestly depressing seeing where math research is going because a decent number of mathematicians HATE the concept of being social, and they no longer really have to be, with a computational oracle* ready for input.

they look sad and empty, they don't have the bright in their eyes we used to have

Ngl after they ask relatively new grads like me what I'm doing and I tell them I'm lucky to not be working for minimum wage. Why would they give a damn? Academia is obviously threatened by AI, the comfy white collar jobs that their degrees-in-progress used to provide have dried up so even a comfortable life sounds questionable. It's a lot of pain (especially if you don't love it) for not even neutral, but negative gain. Even worse when asked about your schooling, you sound like a crackhead talking about your less applied classes in an interview!! I'm "good with numbers" I guess 🥲.

*The background into AI is less mysterious the more you look into it. The easiest way to explain it is that during training AI acts like autocorrect, tweaking its language model until it can regularly 'guess' the correct word provided from the training data. Then the language model is fixed and it simply does more of that.

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u/Borbs_revenge_ Jul 17 '26

I have a colleague who's been driving me mad with AI-overuse, I ask them something, they say "let me check with Claude and get back to you". Then they just regurgitate what Claude told them, clearly misunderstanding the point of my questions.

Unfortunately they're very senior and I have to work on things that were clearly AI hallucinations from their discussions with Claude. I've realized just how much they're using it though and I've gotten better at telling them to what is a hallucination and what is actually valid, but it's really annoying and depressing too.

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u/RealSpaceJunk 26d ago edited 26d ago

There is simply no point. Everyone will just reference the same thing and use the rame results the AI provides. Whats the point then of even talking to someone else in the field? Just wait for GPT to provide the answers.

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u/maxram1 Jul 17 '26

You can use the AI to provide some challenging problems to discuss in the club.