From Math Olympiads to Navier-Stokes: How Fast Is AI Progressing? with Greg Burnham - #778
AI has progressed from grade-school math to contributing to unsolved Navier-Stokes research
“AI systems have gone from struggling with grade-school math to helping solve research problems that have resisted mathematicians for decades, including Navier-Stokes.”
Epoch AI's Greg Burnham discusses the rapid progression of AI mathematical reasoning, from basic arithmetic to contributing to century-old open problems like Navier-Stokes. The episode examines how capability gains have been surprisingly steady across model generations, while highlighting remaining gaps in open-ended research, learning from experience, and identifying novel research directions. This matters because it signals AI is approaching genuine scientific contribution, not just benchmark performance.