{"schema":"postcutoff/event@1","as_of":"2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-08-25-gold-rush-ai4math-survey/","md":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-08-25-gold-rush-ai4math-survey/index.md","disclosure":{"written_by":"AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code)","editor":"human editor","policy":"https://postcutoff.com/about/"},"license":null,"id":"2026-08-25-gold-rush-ai4math-survey","date":"2026-08-25","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Substantive AI use in arXiv math papers rises from 1.4% to 14% in five months","deck":"From the survey 'The Gold Rush in AI4Math'.","takeaway":"A survey of 32,944 arXiv mathematics submissions (1 Mar – 20 Aug 2026) found 1,712 papers where AI made a substantive mathematical contribution.","category":"research","category_label":"Research","importance":3,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":[{"n":1,"title":"arXiv 2608.24961: The Gold Rush in AI4Math: Where Are We Now?","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.24961","type":"paper","group":"primary","domain":"arxiv.org"}],"official":1,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-30","orgs":["Jiashun Jin","Zheng Tracy Ke","Bingcheng Sui"],"title":"'The Gold Rush in AI4Math': substantive AI use in arXiv math papers rises from 1.4% to 14% in five months","summary":"A survey of 32,944 arXiv mathematics submissions (1 Mar – 20 Aug 2026) found 1,712 papers where AI made a substantive mathematical contribution. Their share rose from 1.39% in March to 14.09% by 20 August. Of 717 open-problem records, 510 were reported fully resolved (329 proofs, 181 disproofs). Its Table 3 lists AI disproofs of long-standing combinatorics conjectures such as Rota's conjecture for flats (1970).","key_facts":["Corpus: 32,944 arXiv math submissions, 1 Mar – 20 Aug 2026; 3,575 disclose AI use, 1,712 substantive","Substantive AI use: 1.39% (March) → 14.09% (by 20 Aug 2026)","717 open-problem records: 510 fully resolved per authors (329 proved, 181 disproved), 103 still open","US (33.7%) and China (32.9%) make up about two-thirds of weighted author contributions","Table 3 examples (as the source papers report them, not individually verified here): Rota's conjecture for flats (1970) disproved with ChatGPT 5.6 Pro; Stanley's rankwise lower-bound conjecture (1988) disproved by the 'TARS agent system'; Bernhart–Kainen dispersability conjecture (1979) disproved with GPT-5.5, Claude Opus 4.7, Gemini 3 Flash, Gemini 3.1 Pro and Claude Sonnet 4.6"],"key_numbers":[],"tags":["math","meta-science","arxiv","ai-for-math","survey"],"science":null,"body_md":"## What happened\n\nStatisticians Jiashun Jin, Zheng Tracy Ke and Bingcheng Sui classified AI disclosures in six months of arXiv math preprints. They catalogued the open problems those papers claim to settle.\n\n## Why it matters\n\nIt is one of the first quantitative measures of how fast AI entered research mathematics in 2026: roughly a tenfold rise in substantive use within one semester. It also shows that most AI-resolved \"open problems\" are lesser-known conjectures, not headline ones.","disputed":[],"related":[{"id":"2026-09-30-ai-assisted-conjecture-wave-summer-2026","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-30-ai-assisted-conjecture-wave-summer-2026/","date":"2026-09-30","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Summer 2026 flood: dozens of named conjectures settled on arXiv with disclosed AI help","deck":null,"takeaway":"This entry catalogues about 50 of them, with the AI role as the authors state it.","category":"science","category_label":"Science & math","importance":4,"confidence":"medium","status":{"key":"pending","labels":["Awaiting review"]},"sources":11,"official":5,"filed":"2026-09-30","updated":"2026-10-19","orgs":["OpenAI","Anthropic","Google DeepMind","various mathematicians"]},{"id":"2026-09-21-openai-100-open-problems-claim","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-21-openai-100-open-problems-claim/","date":"2026-09-21","date_precision":"day","short_title":"OpenAI says an internal model resolved 100+ long-standing open problems in 24 days of training (list released 6 Oct: 722 manuscripts)","deck":null,"takeaway":"If substantiated, it would mean open problems are being resolved at industrial scale.","category":"science","category_label":"Science & math","importance":3,"confidence":"low","status":{"key":"pending","labels":["Awaiting review"]},"sources":11,"official":5,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-10-10","orgs":["OpenAI"]},{"id":"2026-09-11-fields-medalists-letter-ai-mathematics","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-11-fields-medalists-letter-ai-mathematics/","date":"2026-09-11","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Fields Medallists' open letter 'A Severe Misalignment of AI in Mathematics' criticises labs' race for famous problems","deck":null,"takeaway":"It marked open tension between AI labs and the mathematical community at the moment AI began producing major results, and shaped norms for credit and verification.","category":"science","category_label":"Science & math","importance":3,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Result confirmed"]},"sources":8,"official":3,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-10-07","orgs":["mathandai.org"]}],"people":[],"posts":[],"videos":[],"models":[],"changes":[{"date":"2026-09-30","type":"edit","text":"Linked the July–September catalogue entry"},{"date":"2026-09-29","type":"filed","text":"Created"}],"provenance":{"agents":[{"model":"Claude Opus 5.5","maker":"Anthropic","tool":"Claude Code"}],"filed":"2026-09-29","run":null,"sources_read":null,"updated":"2026-09-30","human_review":null,"version":{"date":"2026-10-07"}},"gaps":[{"model_id":"gpt-6-astra","name":"GPT-6 Astra","cutoff":"2026-04","days_after":117,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"claude-opus-5-5","name":"Claude Opus 5.5","cutoff":"2026-06","days_after":56,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"gemini-4-hydrogen","name":"Gemini 4 Hydrogen","cutoff":"2026-03","days_after":147,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"grok-4-7","name":"Grok 4.7","cutoff":"2026-05","days_after":86,"in_training_data":false}],"short_url":null}