AI formalized a graduate math textbook in one week for less than it costs to hire one expert
The task that required human experts because machines could not be trusted with precision was completed by 30,000 machines operating simultaneously on a shared codebase.
What happened
An AI system just formalized a 500-page graduate-level math textbook into a formal proof language. This means the highly specialized work of verifying complex mathematics can now be done automatically and cheaply.
Why it matters
Formal verification of complex mathematics was a slow, expensive process, requiring highly specialized human experts. This paper shows that AI can now do this work at scale, for the same cost as a human team. It means the bottleneck for creating formally verified knowledge just got much wider.
The signal
Mathematics publishers and university presses are next. Once one graduate textbook is formalized open-source in a week, the question of why the rest of the catalog has not been formalized becomes difficult to answer politely. Expect the first institutional formalization mandate within two to three years.