--- title: "DeepMind Says Its AI Solved a Math Problem That Humans Were Stumped By" description: "AI has, for seemingly the first time, solved a famously difficult math problem — and folks, this discovery is huge if true." date: "2023-12-16" modified: "2023-12-16" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/deepmind-ai-math-solution" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "DeepMind" - "Google" - "math" - "the digest" --- # DeepMind Says Its AI Solved a Math Problem That Humans Were Stumped By ![AI has, for seemingly the first time, solved a famously difficult math problem — and folks, this discovery is huge if true.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Fun Times DeepMind claims that for the first time, an AI has solved a famously difficult math problem with a solution that eluded human mathematicians — which could be huge if it holds up to scrutiny. In interviews [with *MIT Technology Review*]() and [*The Guardian*](), Google DeepMind researchers waxed prolific about their new AI tool, which they claim has generated a brand new solution to what's known as the "[cap set problem]()," which involves plotting more and more dots without any of them ever forming a straight line. The novel findings, which the researchers announced in a paper [published in the journal *Nature*](), would mark the first time AI has made a unique scientific discovery which, because it was previously unknown, was not part of its training data. That would be a pretty big deal considering that AI is known for [conjuring up nonsense and made-up junk]() even when its training data *has* the right answers. DeepMind built the tool in question, called "FunSearch" in reference to mathematical functions (and not the other kind of fun) on the back of its AlphaZero AI, which solves math problems as if it were playing a game. The LLM it uses is called Codey, which is trained and honed on computer code and programmed to reject incorrect answers and feed correct ones back into its model. ## No Known Answer Feeding code into an AI is one thing, but having it spit out a brand-new solution to a famous puzzle — even though it took a few days, as *MIT* *Tech* points out — is a different thing entirely. "It’s not in the training data," DeepMind research VP Pushmeet Kohli told the website. "It wasn’t even known." There is something of a mystical quality to what the DeepMind scientists are claiming: that the LLM managed to — just maybe — think for itself. "To be very honest with you, we have hypotheses, but we don’t know exactly why this works," DeepMind researcher scientist Alhussein Fawzi told *MIT Tech*. "In the beginning of the project, we didn’t know whether this would work at all." While there will obviously need to be lots more research to verify the claims and try to figure out exactly how FunSearch generated its novel solution to the cap set problem, its creators are clearly stoked. "When we started the project there was no indication that it would produce something that’s genuinely new," Kohli told *The Guardian*. "As far as we know, this is the first time that a genuine, new scientific discovery has been made by a large language model." **More on AI breakthroughs:** [*Bizarre Theory Claims ChatGPT Is Suffering From Seasonal Depression*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()