Mark Selke

Member of Technical Staff, OpenAI · 1 appearance on the record.

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academicscientist@MarkSellke ↗msellke.com ↗

Mark Sellke is a mathematician and theoretical computer scientist known for research in high-dimensional probability and AI-assisted mathematical reasoning. At OpenAI, he collaborated on research using AI models to address long-standing open math problems, including conjectures originally posed by Paul Erdős.

10statements → 6claims → 2claims resolved → 3.6/5average certainty → 2/5average debate potential →

2 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 4 not checkable as stated how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 predictions · 4 assertions · 1 opinion · 2 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 4 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Mark argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Selke: OpenAI models discovered better bounds for spherical and binary codes

“Our models found better bounds for these cases as well.”

Mark Selke Sep 8, 2026 ▶ 33:52 Inside OpenAI’s Breakthroughs in Mathematical Reasoning

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1

none yet certainty 2

none yet certainty 3

100% certainty 4

100% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

What they said10 Episodes1

Everything Mark Selke said on the a16z Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion

Selke: Proving mathematical results is becoming much less of a bottleneck

“Proving the result was, like, so hard that kind of the other stuff was just kind of coming along for the ride, right? You know, like, if you manage to, like, prove this thing yourself, you're automatically gonna understand it quite well. You're kind of respons…”

Mark Selke Sep 8, 2026 ▶ 1:00:42 Inside OpenAI’s Breakthroughs in Mathematical Reasoning

Prediction Not checkable as stated

Selke: AI might plausibly never solve problems like P versus NP

“Even if AI get, you know, continues getting, like, exponentially better at math, like, it might, you know, plausible will never solve something like P versus NP.”

Mark Selke Sep 8, 2026 ▶ 1:02:50 Inside OpenAI’s Breakthroughs in Mathematical Reasoning

Assertion Supported

Selke: OpenAI models discovered better bounds for spherical and binary codes

“Our models found better bounds for these cases as well.”

Mark Selke Sep 8, 2026 ▶ 33:52 Inside OpenAI’s Breakthroughs in Mathematical Reasoning

Disclosure

Selke: Coding theory was Astra's only proof requiring human interaction

“This was the one case where there was some interactivity involved. So for all of, so except for this pair, it was just, you know, we had some problems, we fed them in, and we you know, the model came back with some solutions.”

Mark Selke Sep 8, 2026 ▶ 35:17 Inside OpenAI’s Breakthroughs in Mathematical Reasoning

Insight

Selke: AI models consistently nail detailed mathematical execution where humans get lost

“Another relative strength that's pretty noticeable is just, like, it's very good at executing on some, like, idea once it has it. Like, you know, whenever you have an idea, there's, like, There's usually some amount of, you know, getting everything lined up, l…”

Mark Selke Sep 8, 2026 ▶ 5:20 Inside OpenAI’s Breakthroughs in Mathematical Reasoning

Insight

Selke: AI avoids human cognitive bias by easily resetting polluted context

“Like, as a human, if you have some, like, wrong path you go down for a while, it can be hard to, like, rewire your brain to, like, start over and, like, try a different path. Like, you're kind of, the initial idea is kind of linked in your brain with these oth…”

Mark Selke Sep 8, 2026 ▶ 9:10 Inside OpenAI’s Breakthroughs in Mathematical Reasoning

Assertion Supported

Selke: OpenAI's Astra proved that a non-sofic group exists

“So, so the result that Astra proved is simply that there exists a non-sulfic group.”

Mark Selke Sep 8, 2026 ▶ 47:03 Inside OpenAI’s Breakthroughs in Mathematical Reasoning

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Selke: Only humans can generate 200-page mathematical proofs right now

“Like, only humans can generate, like, 200 page proofs right now.”

Mark Selke Sep 8, 2026 ▶ 56:38 Inside OpenAI’s Breakthroughs in Mathematical Reasoning

Prediction Not checkable as stated

Selke: Non-mathematicians will be able to use advanced math without experts

“The ability of someone who's not working on math is, like, their literal job all the time to, like, understand what's going on and, like, you know, learn about some of the mysteries they might have wondered about will go up quite a lot. Also, you know, if you'…”

Mark Selke Sep 8, 2026 ▶ 1:04:02 Inside OpenAI’s Breakthroughs in Mathematical Reasoning

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Selke: OpenAI's Astra improved bounds further simply when prompted again

“In, in this case, what the model was asked to do originally for codes was to improve the bounds by, like, some exponential factor, so it really, like, shows up in this, like, leading constant up here. And, you know, it improved the bounds, and it didn't try to…”

Mark Selke Sep 8, 2026 ▶ 36:57 Inside OpenAI’s Breakthroughs in Mathematical Reasoning

Appearances (1)

Episode	Date	Speaking time
Inside OpenAI’s Breakthroughs in Mathematical Reasoning	Sep 8, 2026	21m

Mark Selke

The record, in short

Their most notable supported claim

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

Appearances (1)

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