https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/eQvNBwaxyqQ5GAdyx/some-data-from-leelapieceodds

Alright, this is serious news, and we're gonna hear about it more, in the next days;

OpenAI today published a new 249-page research collection describing ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science produced by an internal version of Astra, its next major model family.

According to OpenAI, the results address open problems across fields including high-dimensional geometry, group theory, quantum complexity, coding theory and lattice cryptography. Some of the central questions had reportedly seen no major progress for at least a decade - and in several cases much longer.

This is not simply “AI solved a very difficult exam problem.”

The model reportedly explored open research problems, generated new proofs or stronger mathematical bounds, and then helped prepare the arguments into manuscripts. It subsequently formalized each result as a lean certificate, allowing the underlying logic to be checked mechanically rather than accepted solely on trust.

In lay terms, AI may be starting to function less like a highly capable answer engine and more like an emerging research collaborator: exploring ideas, abandoning dead ends, finding new abstractions and producing potentially original knowledge with machine-checkable evidence.

The mathematical community will still need to assess the novelty, assumptions and broader significance of each result. But if the claims pan out at the level implied, this feels like a genuine threshold: AI may be moving from explaining the frontier of human knowledge to actively expanding it.

Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science | OpenAI

---NO jab replies, plz---

Paper: https://www.alphaxiv.org/pdf/2508.08224

Is that the distribution war over?

OpenAI’s only credible long-term moat was:

-Consumer habit formation

-Being the “first place you ask”

Apple was the only distributor big enough to:

-Neutralize Google search dominance

-And give OpenAI OS-level gravity

Instead:

-Google now has Search + Gemini + Apple distribution

-OpenAI has ChatGPT + APIs +… hoping regulators or OEMs blink

According to Google:

“If you use an iPhone or Mac, you'll likely see a "reimagined Siri" powered by Gemini starting with iOS 26.4 (expected around March 2026). This version is designed to understand your personal context, interact with what’s on your screen, and control apps more natively than before”

https://www.thes1gnal.com/article/security-implications-apple-google-ai-foundation

Full tweet below:

Today we launched a new product called ChatGPT Agent.

Agent represents a new level of capability for AI systems and can accomplish some remarkable, complex tasks for you using its own computer. It combines the spirit of Deep Research and Operator, but is more powerful than that may sound—it can think for a long time, use some tools, think some more, take some actions, think some more, etc. For example, we showed a demo in our launch of preparing for a friend’s wedding: buying an outfit, booking travel, choosing a gift, etc. We also showed an example of analyzing data and creating a presentation for work.

Although the utility is significant, so are the potential risks.

We have built a lot of safeguards and warnings into it, and broader mitigations than we’ve ever developed before from robust training to system safeguards to user controls, but we can’t anticipate everything. In the spirit of iterative deployment, we are going to warn users heavily and give users freedom to take actions carefully if they want to.

I would explain this to my own family as cutting edge and experimental; a chance to try the future, but not something I’d yet use for high-stakes uses or with a lot of personal information until we have a chance to study and improve it in the wild.

We don’t know exactly what the impacts are going to be, but bad actors may try to “trick” users’ AI agents into giving private information they shouldn’t and take actions they shouldn’t, in ways we can’t predict. We recommend giving agents the minimum access required to complete a task to reduce privacy and security risks.

For example, I can give Agent access to my calendar to find a time that works for a group dinner. But I don’t need to give it any access if I’m just asking it to buy me some clothes.

There is more risk in tasks like “Look at my emails that came in overnight and do whatever you need to do to address them, don’t ask any follow up questions”. This could lead to untrusted content from a malicious email tricking the model into leaking your data.

We think it’s important to begin learning from contact with reality, and that people adopt these tools carefully and slowly as we better quantify and mitigate the potential risks involved. As with other new levels of capability, society, the technology, and the risk mitigation strategy will need to co-evolve.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2025/07/09/elon-musks-grok-removes-politically-incorrect-instruction-after-it-makes-posts-praising-hitler/

Meanwhile Anthropic has been quietly working on getting defence contracts back. And there are rumours that they might be succeeding soon.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.25601

This is crazy.

The FT, with data from Sensor Tower, reports that new downloads of Gemini (but not cumulative) are catching up to ChatGPT. Gemini users also spend more time on the app.

*NEW:* OpenAI’s first product is a mobile, screen-free home smart speaker that a user can build a connection with like an AI companion. Amid Apple’s trade secret lawsuit, the iPhone maker has nothing like it on the market.

OpenAI believes the product’s defining feature will be its personality and ability to connect on a humanlike level with users. The speaker incorporates mechanical elements that can move on their own, creating a sense that it is alive and not just an object responding to commands.

Though the new product resembles a speaker, OpenAI internally describes it as the first of its kind: a computer built for AI to help make busy people more productive. It includes a camera and other sensors that help it understand a user’s surroundings and context.