OpenAI AI disproves 指数時間仮説, proves 量子色力学 existence

OpenAI's account shows the results arrived quickly and then moved through outside hands. The AI produced the local smoothing proof on October 18, 2026, and the Lean formalization ran the next day; the 指数時間仮説 disproof came in natural language on October 16 and was formalized on October 17. The physics work dates back further — a natural-language proof on the existence of Yang-Mills theory on September 9 and a 量子色力学 proof on September 18 — and release was delayed until late October because formalization had to finish, with the Yang-Mills formalization completed on October 16.

The four principles OpenAI set for outside collaboration shape how credit is handled. OpenAI says it will not seek academic credit for findings its in-house models produced, that participation is voluntary and unpaid, and that members speak only for themselves. In practice, the groups OpenAI convened are tasked with understanding and explaining outputs rather than making the first discovery, which is why the write-up and verification roles sit with named outside researchers.

The three release paths diverge in openness, and OpenAI presents that divergence as unresolved rather than settled. Mathematics output is public for researchers to gather around; the CS group published both natural-language proofs and Lean formalizations on GitHub right away; the physics group decided to withhold AI-generated output and write its own paper. On the 指数時間仮説, OpenAI's own framing is that refuting it reopens how much faster these problems could be solved but that finding such algorithms and connecting theoretical progress to practical gains requires much more research.