As AI Closed In on ‘Unique Games’ Proof, Researchers Raced to Beat the Machines

On the morning of September 11, 2026, Dor Minzer received a text message from a friend asking whether he was close to settling one of the most famous open questions in theoretical computer science. Minzer, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a leading expert on the “unique games” conjecture, initially thought it was a joke. Then more messages started coming in, and the rumors began to cohere.

The artificial intelligence company OpenAI, fresh from announcing a bombshell proof about the behavior of fluids that sent ripples through the math world, had allegedly discovered a proof of the unique games conjecture. They might make the result public any day. If Minzer had any results of his own to share, the messages suggested, now would be the time to do so.

The unique games conjecture is an iconic question in computational complexity theory, the study of the inherent difficulty of mathematical problems. Roughly speaking, it states that a problem about satisfying multiple constraints at the same time can be extremely hard, even if you’re willing to settle for a poor approximation of the best possible solution. A proof of the conjecture would also automatically imply that current methods for solving many seemingly unrelated problems can’t be improved.

Researchers would be a big step closer to a unified theory of computational difficulty. Minzer had not, in fact, proved the unique games conjecture. But he and his graduate students Yumou Fei and Shuo Wang had recently proved a milestone result about a closely related question.

They were in the midst of writing up their findings — a process that would typically take months or longer — when the rumors began circulating. The trio rushed to finish their draft to avoid being overshadowed by an OpenAI press release. Three days later, prioritizing completeness over clarity, they posted a 95-page paper online with a disclaimer on the first page: “The current version of the manuscript is complete mathematically, but it is not in the shape we wished to share in.”