Hexagon launches: a new arXiv-style repository for LLM-assisted (and even fully LLM-generated) mathematics papers
On Oct 6, 2026 Benjamin Antieau announced Hexagon (hexagonmath.org) in a guest post on Terence Tao's blog: a nonprofit repository for research-level mathematics and theoretical computer science, built with OpenAI's Codex, that explicitly accepts papers "entirely generated by LLMs and even where the submitters claim no human understanding". It is meant to collect the flood of AI-assisted results that arXiv has begun to limit. Its board includes Mohammed Abouzaid, Bryna Kra and Lauren Williams, and its advisers include Kevin Buzzard and Akhil Mathew.
Key facts
- Announced Oct 6, 2026 as a guest post by Ben Antieau (executive director) on Terence Tao's blog; work began in early August 2026
- Purpose: 'We felt that the proliferation of results proved with LLM assistance required a new model for collecting the associated papers'
- Policy: 'Hexagon specifically allows submissions entirely generated by LLMs and even where the submitters claim no human understanding'; contributors (human or organization) are distinguished from submitters, who need ORCID-validated accounts
- No peer review: every deposit is screened automatically and, during the beta, by a human moderator; 'acceptance is not a judgment of correctness, quality, or novelty' (site)
- Rate limit starts at 1 submission/day and grows with a good moderation record; formalization not required, but entries link to formalization projects such as mathlib
- Identifiers like hexagon:2609.00104 (Antieau's example: an LLM-found result on derived invariance of Hodge numbers of fourfolds in characteristic zero); arXiv-style subject classes
- Governance: Hexagon Mathematics Foundation, Delaware nonprofit seeking 501(c)(3) status. Board: Mohammed Abouzaid, François Charles, Bryna Kra, David Savitt, Lauren Williams. Advisory board: Kevin Buzzard, Akhil Mathew, Johannes Schmitt, Steinn Sigurðsson, Nikhil Srivastava, Ravi Vakil, Rachel Ward
- The site itself was built 'with the help of OpenAI's Codex'
- Context: arXiv limited submissions to two per month per author on Oct 1, 2026, after a surge in AI-assisted papers (entry 2026-10-01-arxiv-two-submissions-per-month-limit); Steinn Sigurðsson, on the advisory board, is arXiv's scientific director
What happened
Mathematicians now produce many papers with heavy LLM help, and some are generated almost entirely by models. arXiv has started to restrict submissions. A group of well-known mathematicians set up Hexagon as a separate home for this material, with light moderation, citable identifiers and links to formal proofs. It launched in beta with read and submit APIs.
Why it matters
It is the first dedicated infrastructure for AI-generated mathematics backed by leading mathematicians, and it accepts work that no human claims to understand. That makes it a test of how the field will sort, credit and check machine-made results.
Changelog
- 2026-10-07: created (sweep 2026-10-07, Terence Tao's blog feed)
People
Benjamin Antieau Kevin Buzzard Terence Tao
Related events
- arXiv limits submitters to two papers a month as AI-fuelled submissions hit 40,363 in September 2026 ★★★
- Quanta's math editor asks 'Is AI the End of Math As We Know It?'; young mathematicians form an Association for Human Mathematics ★★★
- Summer 2026 flood: dozens of named conjectures settled on arXiv with disclosed AI help (July–September catalogue) ★★★★
Sources (2)
id: 2026-10-06-hexagon-repository-llm-assisted-math · updated 2026-10-07 · open in the interactive timeline