From Math Olympiads to Navier-Stokes: How Fast Is AI Progressing?

AI systems have gone from struggling with grade-school math to helping solve research problems that have resisted mathematicians for decades, including Navier-Stokes. In this episode, Greg Burnham, who leads AI capabilities research at Epoch AI, joins us to examine what that progress says about where AI is going. We look at how these systems are solving hard math problems, how much they rely on persistence and prior human work, and whether they are starting to produce genuinely new ideas. We also discuss how to measure progress as traditional benchmarks become less useful, why capability gains appear surprisingly steady across model generations, and where models still struggle with open-ended work, learning from experience, and identifying promising new research directions. Full show notes including references: https://twimlai.com/go/778. 🔔 Subscribe to our channel for more great content just like this: https://youtube.com/twimlai?sub_confirmation=1 📖 CHAPTERS =============================== 00:00 - Introduction 01:52 - AI Capabilities Research 03:42 - Is AI Progress Slowing Down? 06:38 - Correlation and Linear Trend of Benchmarks 13:55 - Drivers of AI Progress 19:52 - Evolution of AI Math Capabilities 28:27 - How AI Solves Hard Math Problems 17:05 - Detecting AI Research Breakthroughs 30:24 - AI’s Advantages: Knowledge and Persistence 36:16 - Defining New Ideas and Measuring AI Creativity 44:00 - FrontierMath 46:23 - Benchmarking When the Answers Are Unknown 47:54 - Evaluating Partial Progress on Problems 49:45 - Can AI Do Your Job? 50:23 - Open-Ended Work and Learning on the Fly 54:12 - Models Versus Harnesses 01:00:39 - In-Context On-the-Fly Learning 01:01:40 - Big Questions Shaping AI’s Progress and Trajectory 🗣️ CONNECT WITH US! =============================== Subscribe to the TWIML AI Podcast: https://twimlai.com/podcast/twimlai/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/twimlai Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/twimlai/ Join our Slack Community: https://twimlai.com/community/ Subscribe to our newsletter: https://twimlai.com/newsletter/ Want to get in touch? Send us a message: https://twimlai.com/contact/