Did OpenAI Cheat to Solve a 90-Year-Old Math Problem? & Teens’ Test Scores Are Plummeting
September 9, 2026
AI Summary
5 min read"Greater than 10% within the next decade," said an Anthropic researcher about the chance that AI kills all humans—on the same day OpenAI claimed to have solved a 90-year-old math problem using a swarm of 10,000 AI agents. The juxtaposition was not lost on the hosts of Morning Brew Daily, who spent the episode untangling a messy week in AI, education, trade, and governance.
OpenAI's "Millennium Problem" Breakthrough—and the Plagiarism Drama
The Navier-Stokes problem is one of seven Millennium Problems, established in 2000, each carrying a $1 million prize and the prestige of a Super Bowl and World Series win combined. Only one has been solved in 26 years. OpenAI says it just cracked the second: a question about whether fluids can "blow up" or remain smooth forever. The company claims it found a scenario where an initially smooth fluid at rest develops a singularity in finite time.
But the method was as notable as the result. OpenAI deployed a swarm of 100 agents, later swelling to 10,000, which exchanged 2.7 million messages over 88 hours at a compute cost in the millions of dollars—all using an unreleased model still in testing. The reason for the effort? OpenAI had caught wind that rival Anthropic might have solved two other Millennium Problems and didn't want to be left behind. CEO Sam Altman said, "We were curious if ours could do it too."
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:31) **Episode Introduction & September 9th Birthday Fun** - Neal and Toby open the show and explain why September 9th is the most popular birthday in the US, linking it to holiday conceptions.
- 2 (02:59) **OpenAI Claims to Solve a Millennium Math Problem** - OpenAI says it solved the Navier-Stokes problem, a 90-year-old math puzzle about fluid dynamics, using a swarm of 10,000 AI agents.
- 3 (04:28) **The Drama: Plagiarism and Corporate Rivalry** - The story gets messy as OpenAI is accused of stealing work from an NYU professor and an Anthropic researcher to beat their rival to the punch.
- 4 (06:42) **The Bigger AI Picture: Breakthroughs and Existential Warnings** - The hosts connect the math breakthrough to simultaneous warnings from Anthropic researchers that AI could kill all humans.
- 5 (09:38) **Canada-U.S. Trade War Escalates** - Canada imposed retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion of American goods after trade negotiations broke down, with Trump renaming Lake Ontario "Lake America" out of spite.
- 6 (11:53) **The Economic Toll on Small Businesses** - The tariffs currently affect only 5% of Canada's exports to the U.S., but the pain is concentrated on small and medium-sized businesses.
- 7 (13:15) **Teen Reading Scores Plummet Globally** - New OECD PISA test results show reading skills among 15-year-olds have dropped the equivalent of more than a year of schooling over the last decade.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
#929: OpenAI touts its model was able to solve a really hard math problem, but some are checking its work and raised some serious doubts. President Trump threatens to ban sales of Canadian jet maker Bombardier in the US, escalating the trade war. A new report found students using AI tested worse than those who didn’t use AI. Singapore’s prime minister just got a massive pay bump of $1 million.. Finally, LIV Golf files for chapter 11 bankruptcy
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