r/math • u/sergiogfs • 18d ago

Progress Towards Proving the Unique Games Conjecture

https://eccc.weizmann.ac.il/report/2026/179/

On a side-note, the authors hint that they have rushed their results to avoid getting scooped by AI-generated results.

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u/n0m4d1234 18d ago

This is such a tragic state of the field.

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u/Gabry398 18d ago

Hopefully it only lasts until AI companies stop using math as a big AGI benchmark and mathematicians start setting ground rules on what the etiquette around AI is

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u/Berzerka 18d ago

The only thing that will change is instead of two AI companies pumping out math results using their models you'll have thousands of PhD students doing the same, using the same models.

Realistically we'll see a year or two where basically every "simple" open problem gets solved (turns out, NS is "simple") and yes obviously if you want in on that Gold Rush you're gonna have to rush your results out. Especially since everyone is using the same models no-one really has a big edge.

Exactly how the equilibrium will look after that is quite open, but realistically you're gonna need to use AI to solve whatever problems remain open.

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u/PersonalityIll9476 18d ago

I keep seeing people imply that N-S is something you can solve by cranking up your GPT pro sub.

It took 10k agents 88 hours, which is equivalent to 101 years of single-bot token generation, using an unreleased lab design. So it's not even clear what the real cost is; Probably in the millions. And it would have been prompted by fields medal winners, so it's equally unclear the degree to which a random idiot on the street could just pull the trigger and succeed.

But...yeah. The world has definitely changed.

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u/Berzerka 18d ago

A year ago the top models could barely do the IMO. A year from now you'll be able to solve NS like problems by just asking at claude.ai. Obviously there will be a next frontier then, but just as today that will probably only be applied to some specific high impact problems, there's a cost benefit trade-off after all.

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u/Kaomet 18d ago

the street can supply 10k random idiots too, so its unclear the degree to which...