AI Summary
5 min readOpenAI’s Math Breakthrough, the Shopify-Meta Alliance, and the Coming Wealth Debate
OpenAI revealed this week that an internal model has now resolved more than 100 long-standing open problems in mathematics—a pace that reportedly surprised even the company’s own math team. The announcement landed alongside an open letter from 25 Fields Medalists warning that AI labs treating famous problems as benchmarks is damaging the culture of mathematics. In response, OpenAI is working with an independent advisory group hosted at the Institute for Advanced Study, including members like Timothy Gowers and Edward Witten, though the group will not have a say in how fast OpenAI paces its internal math research.
The Shopify-Meta Partnership and Amazon’s Defensive Posture
Shopify and Meta announced a partnership enabling Meta’s personal AI agent, Mews, to browse Shopify-powered stores and complete purchases through ShopPay. Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke called it “an easy and delightful way to shop,” while Meta’s Chief AI Officer Alexander Wang said the goal is giving Mews users a wide range of stores and products. Amazon has moved to block Mews from shopping on its site entirely, arguing the agent hides its identity and may collect customer credentials without permission.
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What you'll learn
- 1 This Week in AI | E32: Why OpenAI Should Buy Off the World’s Top Mathematicians
- 2 (00:00) **OpenAI Solves 100+ Math Problems** - OpenAI's internal model has resolved more than 100 long-standing open problems in mathematics, surprising even their own math team
- 3 (02:58) **Shopify-Meta Partnership vs Amazon's Blockade** - Shopify and Meta announced a partnership enabling Meta's AI agent Mews to browse Shopify stores and complete purchases through ShopPay, while Amazon has blocked Mews entirely
- 4 (03:51) **Why Amazon Is Circling the Wagons** - The panel debates whether AI agents will displace Amazon as the default front door for e-commerce
- 5 (13:22) **The Travis Kalanick Disruption Theory** - The panel speculates that Uber's founder will disrupt e-commerce through a full-stack approach combining cloud kitchens, depots, and self-driving vehicles
- 6 (14:39) **Live Demo: Building a Grock Bot for E-Commerce** - Jason demonstrates building an AI shopping agent live, showing it can find coupons and beat Amazon's prices by checking vendor websites directly
- 7 (17:58) **OpenAI's Math Breakthrough and the Mathematician Backlash** - Richard argues it's absurd for mathematicians to ask AI to slow down, comparing it to telling medical researchers not to cure diseases
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
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Today’s show:
OpenAI is claiming to have solved more than 100 math problems on top of Navier-Stokes, and guest Richard Socher thinks it's absurd for mathematicians to push back on AI solving their problems too quickly. Jason and Lon are also joined by Guy Podjarny of Tessl and Jake Loosararian of Gecko Robotics to argue over who wins when AI agents start collaborating with, and potentially replacing, academics and scholars.
Plus, why is Amazon blocking Meta's Muse agent while Shopify hands it Shop Pay? Should we trust Anthropic’s new wet lab? And what’s so exciting about Typesafe’s new text-less model Jev?
Guests:
Guy Podjarny on X: https://x.com/guypod Tessl: https://tessl.io/
Richard Socher on X: https://x.com/RichardSocher?lang=en You.com: https://you.com/
Jake Loosararian on X: https://x.com/jakeloosy Gecko Robotics: https://www.geckorobotics.com/
Relevant Links:
The Eureka Machine by Richard Socher → https://shop.hachettebookgroup.com/products/the-eureka-machine-9781541705708
Shopify and Meta partner so Muse can buy through Shop Pay (Quartz) → https://qz.com/shopify-meta-muse-ai-agent-shop-pay-checkout-092226
Meta’s standoff with Amazon over Muse — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/23/metas-standoff-with-amazon-over-muse-comes-ahead-of-meta-connect.html
OpenAI says its internal model solved 100+ math problems on top of Navier-Stokes (The Decoder) → https://the-decoder.com/openai-says-its-internal-model-solved-over-100-long-standing-math-problems-after-just-a-month-of-training/
OpenAI's IAS-hosted advisory group, with Timothy Gowers and Edward Witten (Business Standard) → https://www.business-standard.com/technology/tech-news/openai-s-model-solves-100
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