GPT-5 "solved 10 Erdős problems": it located existing solutions
GPT-5 "solved 10 Erdős problems": it located existing solutions is graded already known on whataifound.org, with the AI's role graded retrieval.
An OpenAI executive announced that GPT-5 had solved 10 previously open Erdős problems and made progress on 11 more; the problems were only 'open' in the sense that one database maintainer was unaware of the already-published solutions the model surfaced.
- Verification
- Already known
- Autonomy
- Retrieval
- Lab
- OpenAI
- Model
- GPT-5
- Field
- Mathematics
- Date
- 2025-10-19
What was found
OpenAI VP Kevin Weil posted that 'GPT-5 found solutions to 10 (!) previously unsolved Erdős problems.' Thomas Bloom, who maintains erdosproblems.com, replied that listing a problem as open there only means he personally was unaware of a solution, and that GPT-5 had found existing papers containing the solutions rather than proving anything new. The post was deleted; Demis Hassabis called the episode 'embarrassing' and Yann LeCun mocked it.
Novelty check
By definition, that is the whole point of the episode. The solutions existed in the published literature; GPT-5's contribution was locating them, a genuinely useful literature-search result that was misdescribed as original problem-solving.
Caveats
Retained as a cautionary entry and a direct companion to the GPT-5 convex-optimization case. The underlying literature search was real and valuable; only the 'solved previously unsolved problems' framing was false. This is distinct from the later, genuine GPT-5.2 + Aristotle resolution of Erdős #728.
Independent checks
Thomas Bloom (erdosproblems.com maintainer): the problems were already solved in the literature; no new proofs · link ↗
Sources
Community discussion
How this is graded
whataifound.org grades every entry on two axes: verification (how solid the result is, from a machine-checked proof down to refuted) and autonomy (how much the AI did versus its human collaborators). This finding is already known and retrieval. Full definitions are in the methodology.
Cite this entry
whataifound.org (2025). GPT-5 "solved 10 Erdős problems": it located existing solutions. whataifound.org: A Registry of AI Scientific and Mathematical Discoveries. https://whataifound.org/finding/2025-10-19-gpt5-erdos-retrieval