Is AI Getting Smarter Faster Than We Think? - Noam Brown
Noam Brown discusses how AI models are improving at mathematical problem-solving at a faster rate than anticipated, demonstrating a tenfold increase in problem complexity yearly. Models progressed from solving school mathematics problems to winning the IMO in 2025, with this trajectory suggesting they may tackle millennium-level problems sooner than his initial 2028 prediction.
Summary
Noam Brown reflects on the accelerating pace of AI progress in mathematical problem-solving capabilities. He establishes a progression framework based on the time it takes human mathematicians to solve problems: school mathematics takes about 5 seconds for models, general math test problems take a minute for experts, and U.S. Olympic Math Team selection problems take a good mathematician approximately 10 minutes. Brown observes that models are demonstrating a consistent tenfold increase in problem complexity annually, measured by the time required for human mathematicians to solve them. He notes that models won gold at the IMO (International Mathematical Olympiad) in 2025, which aligns with this exponential progression since IMO problems typically take about 100 minutes for a mathematician to solve. Extrapolating this trend forward, Brown initially estimated that problems at the level of the Millennium Challenge Corporation would require approximately 15 hours of problem-solving time in the following year after IMO, which he deemed insufficient. Based on this projection, he predicted such problems would be solved by 2028 at the earliest. However, Brown emphasizes that this timeline has already compressed—progress has occurred faster than his earlier expectations.
Key Insights
- AI models are demonstrating a consistent tenfold increase in problem-solving complexity annually, measured by the time required for human mathematicians to solve the same problems
- Models achieved IMO gold in 2025, which logically follows the pattern since IMO problems take about 100 minutes for mathematicians, fitting the year-over-year progression from easier problems
- Progress toward solving Millennium Challenge Corporation-level problems is happening significantly faster than Brown's 2028 prediction, indicating the exponential growth trend is accelerating beyond expectations
Topics
Transcript
[0:00] Models do incredibly powerful things. Progress is going faster than I expected. I mean, when we won gold at IMO in 2025, I thought the models, when they learned to solve GSMA problems, spent about 5 seconds on one problem, like a mathematician. So, this is school mathematics. And the next year they were already coping with math test scores . This would probably take a math expert a minute. And then you move on to selecting for the U.S. Olympic Math Team. It would take a person, a good mathematician, probably 10 minutes. And the models were able to do it in a year. [0:30] So every year we see a tenfold increase in the complexity of the…
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