Scott Aaronson credits GPT-5 with a key step in a quantum complexity proof
Result confirmed
The takeaway
In ‘Limits to black-box amplification in QMA’ (Aaronson and Witteveen, arXiv 2509.21131), GPT-5-Thinking suggested the key function Tr[(I−E(θ))^−1] used in the proof.
Status
- Claim
Result confirmed
- Our reporting
- High confidence
- Verification
- Expert-checked
- Importance
- 3 of 5
- Last verified
- 29 September 2026
Your AI and this story
- GPT-6 AstraIn its training data
- Claude Opus 5.5In its training data
- Gemini 4 HydrogenIn its training data
- Grok 4.7In its training data
It happened before the cutoffs of all four assistants, so it can be in their training data.
Key facts
- Result: black-box amplification cannot push QMA completeness error below doubly exponential or soundness error below exponential
- Aaronson: ‘Within a half hour, it had suggested to look at the function…’
- Aaronson: ‘if a student had given it to me, I would’ve called it clever’
- Blog post ‘The QMA Singularity’, 27 Sep 2025
What happened
Stuck on a technical step, Aaronson asked GPT-5 for help. Within about half an hour it proposed analysing a resolvent-trace function, which worked.
Why it matters
It was a credible, first-person account from a top theorist of an LLM contributing a genuine idea to a published result.
Sources
3 sources from 3 sites. Numbers match the chips in the text.
3 sources: 1 primary, 1 press, 1 reaction
Primary
- Limits to black-box amplification in QMA (arXiv 2509.21131)arxiv.org, paper
Press
- The Quantum Insider: GPT-5 serves as research assistantthequantuminsider.com, press
Reactions
- Scott Aaronson: The QMA Singularityscottaaronson.blog, discussion
Changes
- Filed