How a reasoning model cracked an 80-year-old math problem

The OpenAI Podcast · 4 Jun 2026 · Episode 20

About this episode

Reasoning researchers Alexander Wei, Hongxun Wu and Lijie Chen explain how a general-purpose model helped disprove an 80-year-old conjecture from Paul Erdős: the moment the result started to look real, what it took to verify the proof, and what it means for how researchers will work with AI.

About the show

The OpenAI Podcast — OpenAI. Long-form conversations with the people building at OpenAI — research, ChatGPT, Codex, infrastructure and where the industry is heading.