OpenAI researchers claim GPT-5 ‘solved’ 10 Erdős problems
The solutions were already in the literature
Retracted
The takeaway
In mid-October 2025 OpenAI’s Kevin Weil tweeted that GPT-5 ‘found solutions to 10 (!) previously unsolved Erdős problems’.
Status
- Claim
Retracted
- 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
- Claim (deleted tweet by Kevin Weil): ‘GPT-5 found solutions to 10 (!) previously unsolved Erdős problems and made progress on 11 others’
- Bloom: GPT-5 ‘found references, which solved these problems, that I personally was unaware of’
- Demis Hassabis: ‘This is embarrassing.’ Yann LeCun also mocked the claim
- What was real: GPT-5 was an effective literature-search tool, and several problems’ statuses were updated
What happened
OpenAI researchers publicised GPT-5 “solutions” to Erdős problems. The site’s maintainer explained that “open” on his site meant only that he did not know of a solution, and that GPT-5 had surfaced old papers.
Why it matters
The episode set the standard of scepticism for later AI maths claims, and led to Tao’s public wiki tracking exactly what AI contributed to each Erdős problem. It also showed the real, less glamorous value of AI literature search.
Sources
3 sources from 3 sites. Numbers match the chips in the text.
3 sources: 2 press, 1 reaction
Press
- TechCrunch: OpenAI’s ‘embarrassing’ mathtechcrunch.com, press
- The Decoder: OpenAI researcher announced a GPT-5 math breakthrough that never happenedthe-decoder.com, press
Reactions
- Terence Tao’s wiki: AI contributions to Erdős problemsgithub.com, discussion
Changes
- Filed