MIT Technology Review Narrated What’s next for AI and math
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Sep 24, 2025 Discover how large language models are advancing in high school-level math and beyond. Learn about DARPA's XMath initiative aimed at creating AI co-authors that accelerate mathematical breakthroughs. Hear discussions on the limits of modern reasoning models in tackling traditional research math. Explore Frontier Math, a benchmark challenging AI with novel problems. Delve into techniques that shorten lengthy proof paths, and consider AI's role as a scout for human intuition in mathematics.
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DARPA Wants AI Co-Authors
- DARPA's XMath aims to create AI co-authors to speed mathematical discovery beyond chalkboard methods.
- The program targets tools that break big problems into simpler subproblems to accelerate research.
Stepwise Reasoning Boosts Math Performance
- New large reasoning models (LRMs) process problems step-by-step and perform far better on contest math than older LLMs.
- Hybrid systems that pair LLMs with verifiers (like AlphaProof) have reached competition-level milestones previously thought out of reach.
From GPT-4 Failure To O1 Success
- Diolivera Santos tested GPT-4 on topology and it failed to write more than a few coherent lines.
- The same problem was solved by OpenAI's O1, illustrating rapid model improvement.