This went viral today, “AI’s solution to 87-year-old riddle takes mathematicians by surprise.”
Levent Alpöge at Harvard University wrote on X on 19 July that the Jacobian conjecture – which academics have spent decades trying to prove was true – is actually false, giving a tiny, 216-character counterexample as proof.
I will admit I wish I had thought of this (not the conjecture), but just running it into a prompt. This is the math-equivalent of winning the lottery, where the price is worldwide fame and publication in a top journal, which, TBH, is better than money away. We’re going to see even more of this, if it hasn’t happened already. Everyone is going to start full-sending open conjectures into all the models at massive scale, in the hope of hitting math paydirt.
It makes me ask, “What is the point of studying math?” when AI and luck matter more, either in terms of choosing problems that are tractable with AI or crafting the perfect prompt. Or, “Why even bother going to university for 4-10 years when you can just run prompts for open conjectures?” Imagine how pissed of you’d feel to have studied this problem for years, only to be beaten by AI. You get no credit for failed attempts. This guy gets all the fame even though it was technically Fable that found the solution.
As someone notes below:
Just to take a step back here, Levent had the highest GPA at Harvard, won the top undergrad math research prize and most frequently collaborates with a Fields Medalist.
We don’t have enough human mathematicians to ask questions to AI and spend time understanding the results https://t.co/GhPQzofdCT
— Prakash (@8teAPi) July 20, 2026
This agrees with my post, “AI is not going to make mathematicians obsolete.” Levent Alpöge, who found the counterexample, is from Harvard, which is as prestigious as it gets as far as credentials go. Rather than AI making mathematicians obsolete, it’s a tool used by mathematicians, much like Mathematica. Other mathematicians were recruited to check the proof and to create the LEAN proof. As far as I know, there has been no example of a layperson making a math breakthrough using AI. Although, I checked this now, and Liam Price in 2026 had apparently done just that.
There is always some low hanging fruit that in hindsight seems obvious. You have to keep your eyes peeled. AI is a backdoor to math when combined with attentiveness of whoever uses it to find these low hanging problems.