GoKawiilPSI uses Anthropic's Claude model to solve 18-year-old quantum computing conjecture
Startup Physical Superintelligence (PSI) says its researcher David Turturean used early access to Anthropic's Fable 5.2 model to produce a proof of the Aaronson-Ambainis conjecture, a long-standing open problem in quantum query complexity. Scott Aaronson, who co-posed the conjecture decades ago, said he cannot fully verify the proof himself but believes it is correct because it was autoformalized in the Lean proof language and reviewed by outside researchers PSI consulted. The result rules out one theoretical route for quantum computers to gain speed advantages over classical ones, though not all such routes.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The episode is being used by PSI to showcase its approach of pairing frontier AI models with specialized scaffolding to tackle unresolved scientific problems, suggesting such systems could increasingly contribute original research rather than just assist humans. Aaronson's own surprise that the problem wasn't solved earlier by rival AI efforts hints at uneven progress across AI labs on hard formal problems, though verification by outside experts remains necessary before such claims are fully trusted. Turturean's remark that this could be his last authored paper signals a possible shift in how scientific credit and authorship may work as AI takes on more discovery work.
- PSI researcher used Anthropic's Fable 5.2 model to prove the Aaronson-Ambainis conjecture, open for 18 years.
- Scott Aaronson says he trusts the proof's correctness due to Lean formalization and expert review, though he can't fully verify it himself.
- The result highlights PSI's bet on specialized AI harnesses for scientific discovery as a viable business model.
Source: techcrunch.com — Tim Fernholz, 2026-11-10
Published there as: “PSI is trying to make a business out of AI-driven scientific discovery”
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