That Erdos problem solution is believed by quite a few to be a previous result found in the literature, just used in a slightly different way. It also seems not a lack of progress but simply no one cared to give it a go.
That’s a really fantastic capability, but not super surprising.
You're thinking of a previous report from a month ago, #897 or #481, or the one from two weeks ago, #728. There's a new one from a week ago, #205, which is genuinely novel, although it is still a relatively "shallow" result.
Terence Tao maintains a list [1] of AI attempts (successful and otherwise). #205 is currently the only success in section 1, the "full solution for which subsequent literature review did not find new relevant prior partial or full solutions" section - but it is in that section.
As to speed, as far as I know the recent results are all due to GPT 5.2, which is barely a month old, or Aristotle, which is a system built on top of some frontier LLMs and which has only been accessible to the public for a month or two. I have seen multiple mathematicians report that GPT-5.2 is a major improvement in proof-writing, e.g. [2]
Thanks for the wiki link, very interesting, in particular
- the long tail aspect of the problem space ; 'a "long tail" of under-explored problems at the other, many of which are "low hanging fruit" that are very suitable for being attacked by current AI tools'
- the expertise requirement, literature review but also 'Do I understand what the key ideas of the solution are, and how the hypotheses are utilized to reach the conclusion?' so basically one must already be an expert (or able to become one) to actually use this kind of tooling
and finally the outcomes which taking into consider the previous 2 points makes it very different from what most people would assume as "AI contributions".
The zoning laws are far from the only tool used by municipalities to dramatically reduce supply. Permitting, requiring expensive changes at various points in the process, local building boards requiring extraneous modifications and often forcing scope reductions, affordable housing requirements, etc all make building more expensive. Often by a very large amount.
I don't believe this has much impact on the current situation (relative to zoning) but would be interested to learn otherwise. Can you provide verifiable examples for any of it?
I'm not opposed to alternative research organizations, funding structures, etc. But this does seem like a fairly direct attempt to shift funding from universities into private firms, a funding structure which IMHO is much easier to abuse.
> Tech Labs will provide entrepreneurial teams of proven scientists the freedom and flexibility to pursue breakthrough science at breakneck speed, without needing to frequently stop and apply for additional grant funding with each new idea or development.
This sounds great, but has a few issues. #1 only funding proven scientists risks destroying the training pipeline which is the crucial edge that the US has over any other country in the world. It's also something that can and should be applied to universities as well. Lab groups or centers should be given much more runway than they are now.
> coordinated, interdisciplinary teams to achieve success
There are two places where this can really happen today: universities and national labs. The NSF should be fostering more cross-disciplinary and product engineering research across different departments at universities which already have deep talent pools across the board.
> The Tech Labs initiative will support full-time teams of researchers, scientists, and engineers
This sounds great, more university labs should have full-time researchers attached. Research Software Engineers are one somewhat common example in the computational sciences.
In general I support the overall mission statement but I am extremely wary of this kind of rhetoric from this government. They have failed to walk the walk on the sciences in any domain. This seems like a Trojan horse to transfer more money from the research apparatus into industry.
The proven pipeline you are discussing here isn’t going anywhere. PhD students still will do their phds. What this kind of funding structure will do is reduce the amount of time writing proposals. It’s not dissimilar to Norways research centres for excellence which are funded for ten years. I think this is good. Like, I have three separate proposals I’m writing concurrently. It’s annoying and takes away from my ability to interact with my colleagues and those I advise as well as my own research. Additionally, it’s basically impossible to hire engineering type roles which are way better than trying to convince a postdoc to be a software developer. Additionally I see a lot of colleagues not optimising for impact where I feel that this program will force that.
The store I worked at for a while had a surprising number of real bearded experts, alongside at least a few younger folks who really understood the internal systems. It was great, but clearly was eroding as the experts retired and young folks with no experience were hired to replace them.
Their internal setup was also an absolute mess as of 4 years ago. A horrific hybrid of extremely legacy systems and new systems created around COVID which are both nicer and also deeply lacking in features we needed as floor workers.
I understand that upgrading and migrating to new systems takes time but this process never seemed like it involved anyone on the ground.
What parts of the biology of sex mandates different treatment? Do you mean that medicine should be tailored to biology? Yes obviously, and even very progressive research hospitals take great pains to ensure the treatment is tailored to biology. Perhaps more so than conservative hospitals. You would know this if you engaged with the research outside of the news.
Outside of medicine? What different treatment does “biology” merit?
I bet they’re reading the room. They will have some problems if they’re the only ones who sign, but fewer if there’s at least two others who join them.
There is a fundamental issue with this kind of federalism though in that it increases strife and could easily lead to civil war.
Let’s say we get rid of Medicare, Medicaid, social security, and research funding at the federal level. What happens next?
The West Coast and North East form compacts, companies, or nonprofits that provide healthcare, retirement and funding for their schools. The south, parts of the Midwest, and the plains fail to do so (at least to the same level) and within a generation we have two separate countries and war.
> within a generation we have two separate countries and war
Or do we? Some states don’t seem to want these things, or at least that’s what their representatives say. So let them experiment. My guess is the loss of benefits will outweigh the meager tax savings, but there may be a couple of states that are fine with the tradeoff. As long as people can move freely, it should be a self-correcting problem.
The problem with centralization is that it creates an all-or-nothing battle for federal control. Right now the people winning that battle don’t seem to share your vision for social programs. Could be an issue, especially with ongoing gerrymandering efforts!
In a big country with strongly polarized political opinions, federalism is the best way to fight this sort of political capture and the associated back-and-forth escalation. As tensions boil over, the only other option that can maintain a semblance of order is brutal repression.
>The West Coast and North East form compacts, companies, or nonprofits that provide healthcare, retirement and funding for their schools.
These coastal states run blowout deficits despite having high taxes on workers and businesses. The companies there might migrate if they could save money on taxes.
>The south, parts of the Midwest, and the plains fail to do so (at least to the same level) and within a generation we have two separate countries and war.
The states are already supposed to be largely sovereign. It is the Federal government asserting authority to tax and regulate everyone that fouls things up. Unfortunately we already have extensive social programs that people have been robbed to pay for, so walking it back would leave too many people everywhere feeling ripped off.
There is NOTHING special about the coastal states that guarantees them supremacy in any area of production. They have lots of people and inertia. Whatever they can do, other states can do also (and probably already are). It's an elitist attitude of the residents of those states that makes them think they're better than the "flyover" states.
I think wording is important here. California doesn't give anything to the federal government. So, I'll try my best to correct it.
Because of high salaries and population, the people of the state of California pay more in federal income taxes than the state receives as federal subsidies.
Perhaps same end result, but the framing is important. California isn't some saint who donates money to the govt.
California is also huge and populous. It's not like there is anything special about California that makes it have a high GDP, other than its size and the great weather which attracts a lot of people and businesses to there. I would have to look it up, but I suspect that every state pays more to the Federal government than they get. There's no free lunch.
To my original point, most people and businesses are not flocking to California to be taxed to hell for some welfare programs or whatever. Businesses would move in a heartbeat away from that overtaxed and overregulated state if they could. But since most taxes are federal and can't be avoided by moving to the Midwest or something, they might as well pay a little more to be in a marginally better or more prestigious location.
I'm not talking about the government itself lol. I mean the people and businesses in each state collectively, obviously. Even with the huge national debt and budget deficit, I think most states on net contribute more in taxes than they get back. That's the entire point of taxes, otherwise it would be called a gift or something instead. The federal government could not pay out more than it takes in indefinitely to the entire country without just running the printing press to pay the difference. That is what they do, in fact, but clearly they aren't printing everything they spend.
That’s a really fantastic capability, but not super surprising.
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