Insight certainty 3/5 debate potential 2/5

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

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

OpenAI researcher Mark Selke discusses the relative strengths of frontier AI reasoning models compared to human mathematicians when formalizing technical proofs.

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“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, like, you know, is epsilon, like, smaller than delta? This kind of thing. You have to get everything correct. And, like, for a human, you know, you, it's easy to get lost in these kinds of details, and the AIs just kind of always nail these kinds of arguments, I find.”

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