Why Vlad Tenev and Tudor Achim of Harmonic Think AI Is About to Change Math—and Why It Matters

24 Sept 2024 · 39 min
39:11

In this interview Sonya Huang and Pat Grady sit down with Vlad Tenev, founder and CEO of Robinhood, and Tudor Achim, co‑founder of Harmonic, an AI research lab that aims to build a mathematical superintelligence. The conversation explores Harmonic’s core belief that mathematics is the essence of reasoning and that the most effective way to train AI for math is to teach it mathematics directly, using formal proof assistants rather than hoping math emerges from scale. They explain how the Lean proof language and the open‑source mathlib library provide a rigorous, verifiable environment where AI agents can generate synthetic data, receive binary correctness feedback, and engage in self‑play and reinforcement learning, enabling recursive self‑improvement without human bottlenecks. The guests discuss the current data scarcity for math, the importance of synthetic data generation, and the role of compute as the primary rate‑limiting factor. They give optimistic timelines for AI achievements: winning the International Mathematical Olympiad within a year, solving Millennium Prize problems (e.g., Riemann Hypothesis, Navier‑Stokes) by the late 2020s, and eventually surpassing top human mathematicians. The interview also touches on the split attitudes in the mathematics community toward AI, the historical context of formal verification tools, why the convergence of modern large language models and Lean 4 makes this moment ripe, and broader ambitions for Harmonic to impact software verification, safety‑critical code, and theoretical physics. Throughout, the tone is conversational and enthusiastic, with occasional reflective or speculative moments.

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