Google hadn’t only delivered a gold-medal winning performance at the International Mathematics Olympiad with its AI model, but the model is already making a difference in the real world.
A mathematician says that Google’s Deep Think model has helped solve a conjecture which had mathematicians stumped for years. Google had today made a version of the model that won the gold at the IMO available to the subscribers of its Ultra plan, and had given the actual model to real-world mathematicians.
“With my most recent experience with Gemini Deep Think, the answer was spectacular,” said mathematician mathematician Michel van Garrel, who is an Assistant Professor in Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Birmingham. “(There was) a mathematical conjecture that was made by some people some years ago. They didn’t manage to prove it back then — they checked many cases and then they just left it as a conjecture. I asked the statement of the conjecture to Gemini Think, and it seems like it proved it right away with a completely different method,” he added.
“When I was thinking about solving that question, I was thinking about maybe three different things, three different ideas. But it seems that Deep Think was thinking about twenty or a hundred — many, many different possibilities and then pursuing them,” he added.
This might be the first instance of an AI model having solved a mathematical conjecture that humans had proposed but had been unable to solve. In mathematics, a conjecture is a proposition that is proffered on a tentative basis without proof, and mathematicians can spend decade in trying to rigorously prove it. Google’s Deep Think model, though, seems to have gone through many different possibilities, and come up with a solution.
It’s likely that this is only the start of AI models coming up with novel discoveries in math and science. Tech leaders including Demis Hassabis, Sam Altman and Dario Amodei have predicted this, and it looks that the wheels for these breakthroughs are finally in motion. What’s also impressive is the price point at which this intelligence is being made available — Google is making the Deep Think model available in its Ultra plan which costs $250 a month. And with world-class intelligence now being widely distributed, and available at a fraction of the cost of a competent human researcher, we might really be in for a golden period of science and technology.