Back to News

OpenAI Disproves Exponential Time Hypothesis, Impagliazzo Says

#openai#exponential-time-hypothesis#complexity-theory#encryption

Russell Impagliazzo, co-proposer of the Exponential Time Hypothesis, called OpenAI's disproof of the hypothesis 'shocking news'. The result could have implications for speeding up chip design and breaking encryption, according to a New York Times report.

Coverage timeline

  1. Techmeme

    Cade Metz / New York Times : Exponential Time Hypothesis co-proposer Russell Impagliazzo calls OpenAI's disproof “shocking news”; it could one day speed up chip design and break encryption — A longstanding hypothesis held that some problems would always be hard for computers to solve quickly.

Related stories

  • OpenAI claims disproof of Exponential Time Hypothesis, plus math and physics results

    OpenAI announced three new discoveries in mathematics, computer science, and physics, including a claimed disproof of the Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH), a conjecture widely believed for nearly 30 years. The results cover local smoothing for the Euclidean wave equation, the Kakeya conjecture in four dimensions, and a rigorous mathematical existence proof for four-dimensional quantum field theories including quantum chromodynamics. External experts guided the results, and materials were released on GitHub for verification.

    5 reports · 5 sources1153 points · 701 comments
  • OpenAI engineer arrested for planting recording device in conference room

    OpenAI reported that the FBI arrested one of its engineers, Abdulrahman Alfozan, after the company discovered a hidden recording device in an executive conference room and used its own AI models to identify him as the person who planted it. Federal prosecutors charged the 35-year-old Saudi national with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications. Court filings revealed he used a $14 Seeed Xiao ESP32-S3 Sense dev board and had booked one-way tickets to Saudi Arabia for October 12, days after his October 9 arrest.

    8 reports · 3 sources653 points · 542 comments
  • OpenAI President: Q3 2026 Revenue Inflection, IPO Possible in 2027

    OpenAI President Greg Brockman said the first half of 2026 was "pretty rough" but that the company experienced a "revenue inflection" in Q3, driven by agentic coding tools, GPT-5.6 Sol, and ChatGPT Work, with growing enterprise business. He also stated the company could be ready for an IPO in 2027, citing accelerating enterprise revenue and a business turnaround.

    2 reports · 2 sources
  • OpenAI Fires Three Safety Researchers Over Leaks to External AI Researcher

    According to the Wall Street Journal, OpenAI fired three safety researchers suspected of leaking internal model designs to AI safety researcher Ryan Greenblatt, including via disappearing Signal chats. The researchers had been advocating for greater transparency about model workings.

    1 reports · 1 sources

News updates every hour. Subscribe in your RSS reader to get new stories automatically.

Subscribe