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Researchers Say OpenAI’s Bot Shows Signs Of Mathematical Genius
- Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
- Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager
Thirty leading mathematicians from around the world secretly met at UC Berkeley to test OpenAI’s “o4-mini” powerful artificial intelligence. The bot received its most challenging math problems during a weekend competition which left the participants amazed by its responses.
In a rush? Here are the quick facts:
- Mathematicians used Signal to avoid contaminating AI training data.
- The AI learned new concepts during live problem-solving sessions.
- O4-mini mimicked human-like reasoning and literature review strategies.
“I have colleagues who literally said these models are approaching mathematical genius,” said Ken Ono, a mathematician at the University of Virginia and a judge at the event, as reported by Scientific American (SCI AM).
The developers trained O4-mini as a compact yet powerful version of ChatGPT to handle complex problem-solving tasks, as reported by SCI AM.
The researchers were amazed when O4-mini solved 20% of 300 unpublished math questions during the FrontierMath test, which Epoch AI developed as a nonprofit organization. Traditional models solved fewer than 2%, noted SCI AM.
“I came up with a problem which experts in my field would recognize as an open question in number theory,” Ono said, as reported by SCI AM. The bot spent two minutes reviewing the literature, tried a simpler version first, and then solved it, adding, “No citation necessary because the mystery number was computed by me!”
“It was starting to get really cheeky […] That’s frightening” Ono added, as reported by SCI AM.
The group discovered ten problems that the AI system could not solve but many participants were amazed by the rapid advancement of the technology. “This is what a very, very good graduate student would be doing—in fact, more,” said Yang Hui He of the London Institute, as reported by SCI AM.
The mathematicians explored potential scenarios where humans would direct AI systems instead of performing mathematical solutions independently. As Ono warned, “It’s a grave mistake to say that generalized artificial intelligence will never come […] These models are already outperforming most of our best graduate students,” as reported by SCI AM
Image by Stephen Phillips, from Unsplash
Over Half of Americans Targeted In Email Scams
- Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
- Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager
If you’ve been getting more scam messages lately, you’re not imagining things, and Google now has the numbers to back it up.
In a rush? Here are the quick facts:
- 61% of U.S. users were targeted by email scams last year.
- More than half of Americans experienced a data breach.
- Most users still rely on passwords and 2FA, Google reports.
The survey conducted by Google shows that more than 60% of U.S. users have observed rising online scams throughout the previous year. Alarmingly, 61% of users have received direct attacks through email, Google researchers add that the situation is even worse via text message.
Google says more than half of users have experienced a data breach, yet “almost all users are yet to upgrade their accounts to make them safer and more secure,” as reported by Forbes .
Despite Google’s warning about their declining security, the majority of users continue to use traditional authentication methods, including passwords and two-factor authentication (2FA).
“Passwords are not only painful to maintain, but are also more prone to phishing and often leaked through data breaches,” the company warns .
The solution? Google suggests to use passkeys and social sign-ins, like “Sign in with Google.” These newer tools are easier to use and much harder to hack. “Passkeys are phishing-resistant and can log you in simply with the method you use to unlock your device (like your fingerprint or face ID) — no password required.”
But the company wants everyone on board. “We want to move beyond passwords altogether, while keeping sign-ins as easy as possible,” it says. In short, if you’re still using passwords to protect your Gmail and Google accounts, it’s time for an upgrade, not just for convenience, but for your own safety.
