AI tools solving Erdős problems have achieved roughly 50 successes out of approximately 1,100 problems, but the pace of discovery has plateaued as the low-hanging fruit has been exhausted, and recent attempts to have frontier AI models directly solve remaining problems one-shot have ceased producing new solutions despite sustained effort.

factualpending

Speaker

Terence Tao

Evidence Quote

We're seeing a lot fewer pure AI solutions now where the AI just one-shots the problem. There was a month where that happened and that has stopped, not for lack of trying. I know of three separate attempts to get frontier model AIs to just attack every single one of the problems simultaneously.

Source

Terence Tao – How the world’s top mathematician uses AIDwarkesh Patel
Created: 8/12/2026, 6:05:48 PM

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