AI solves about half of 10 unpublished research problems in the ‘First Proof’ challenge
Result confirmed
The takeaway
Eleven mathematicians released 10 unpublished research-level problems on 5 Feb 2026 and answers on 14 Feb. DeepMind’s Aletheia got 6/10 by majority expert assessment.
Status
- Claim
Result confirmed
- Our reporting
- High confidence
- Verification
- Unverified claim
- Importance
- 3 of 5
- Last verified
- 5 October 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
- 10 problems from the authors’ own unpublished research; answers revealed 14 Feb 2026
- Aletheia: problems 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 judged correct by majority (experts split on #8)
- OpenAI: problems 4, 5, 6, 9, 10 likely correct; retracted claim on #2
What happened
Mathematicians created a contamination-proof test using problems from their own unpublished work, and AI labs submitted solutions within a week.
Why it matters
It gave a cleaner measure than olympiads of whether AI can do research maths: at the time, about half the time.
Sources
3 sources from 3 sites. Numbers match the chips in the text.
3 sources: 2 primary, 1 press
Primary
- First Proof challenge1stproof.org, official
- OpenAI: First Proof submissionsopenai.com, official
Press
- Scientific American: First Proof is AI’s toughest math test yet — the results are mixedscientificamerican.com, press
Changes
- Linked the second-batch benchmark entry (June 2026)
- Filed