My guest today is Robert Hart, The Verge’s London-based AI reporter. Robert recently wrote a fantastic story for us about the debate raging inside the world of mathematics — and the existential crisis over what it means that new frontier AI models have become very good at math in a shockingly short period of time.&nbsp;
I wanted to dive into all of this with Robert, who actually spoke to some of the most accomplished mathematicians working today to figure out what’s hype and what’s real — and to get a sense of just how exciting, and how scary, all of this is.&nbsp;
Links:&nbsp;
<ul>
 <li>The AI takeover of mathematics has begun | <a href="https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/977273/the-ai-takeover-of-mathematics-has-begun">The Verge</a></li>
 <li>Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science | <a href="https://openai.com/index/ten-advances-in-mathematics/">OpenAI</a></li>
 <li>An unreleased Anthropic model made progress on the Riemann hypothesis| <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/11/an-unreleased-anthropic-model-made-progress-on-one-of-maths-biggest-unsolved-problems/">TechCrunch</a></li>
 <li>OpenAI’s amazing — but vastly oversold — new model Astra | <a href="https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/openais-amazing-but-vastly-oversold">Gary Marcus</a></li>
 <li>OpenAI’s math breakthrough played to AI’s strengths | <a href="https://www.understandingai.org/p/openais-milestone-math-breakthrough">Understanding AI</a></li>
 <li>Why the legendary Erdős problems are falling to AI |<a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-the-legendary-erdos-problems-are-falling-to-ai-20260803/"> Quanta</a></li>
</ul>

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Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Ursa Wright. Our supervising producer is Greg Ott, and our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a>

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