Scott Aaronson: “I Heard That a Robot Solved the Math Problem You Worked On”

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This episode is about math after AI started solving its open problems. Scott Aaronson, director of the Quantum Information Center at UT Austin, joins to explain why there is no making this go away. We discuss who gets credit for AI proofs, what is left for PhD students, and OpenAI’s apparent proof of the unique games conjecture. His wife, the complexity theorist Dana Moshkovitz, has worked on that conjecture since they met. The conversation also covers whether a lab that proved P equals NP should release it, and how AI overturned a conjecture he and Greg Kuperberg posed, with consequences for black hole firewalls. We end with Maxwell’s demon and why he thinks integrated information theory is wrong.

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TIMESTAMPS:
- 00:00 - AI Solved the Unique Games Conjecture
- 06:01 - Is Math About Understanding?
- 14:26 - OpenAI vs. Anthropic Disclosure
- 21:21 - Who Gets Credit for AI Proofs?
- 26:46 - Mourning the Mathematician
- 35:39 - The AI Denialism Problem
- 41:31 - Association for Human Mathematics
- 47:24 - If AI Proves P = NP
- 52:53 - Is Physics Next?
- 58:51 - Unitary Synthesis Problem Solved
- 01:04:30 - Black Hole Firewalls & P vs PSPACE
- 01:15:41 - Maxwell's Demon & Pseudo-Entropy
- 01:22:32 - Why IIT Is Wrong

LINKS:
- The Mathocalypse [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=10169
- The Mathocalypse, Comment #115 [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=10169#comment-2041220
- P =? NP [Paper]: https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/pnp.pdf
- Quantum Versus Classical Proofs and Advice [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0604056
- Quantum Computation vs. Firewalls [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1301.4504
- Limits on Efficient Computation in the Physical World [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0412143
- Talk at Columbia University [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9243
- Computational Complexity and Explanations in Physics [Lecture]: https://youtu.be/GcbLL4C3VwY
- Why I Am Not an Integrated Information Theorist [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=1799
- Giulio Tononi and Me: A Phi-nal Exchange [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=1823
- Dispatches From the Possibly Last Days of Human Relevance [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9782
- The Age of Wonders and Terrors [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=10062
- Ten Signs a Claimed Mathematical Breakthrough Is Wrong [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=304
- AI Alignment Theory Course at UT Austin [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=10125
- Dana Moshkovitz [Website]: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/people/faculty-researchers/dana-moshkovitz
- The Unique Games Theorem [Paper]: https://github.com/openai/math/blob/main/preprints/The-Unique-Games-Theorem-September-23-2026/paper.pdf

Full reading list for this episode (all 58 sources): https://curtjaimungal.com

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