August 2, 2026 — The Werner-State Race: AI, Humans, and One Open Problem
Three independent teams solved a famous twenty-year-old open problem in quantum information theory — the two-copy distillability of Werner states — within days of each other in late July 2026. One team credits AI models with generating the actual proof; another reached the same conclusion with a fully human derivation. Brian walks through both papers, Terence Tao's ICM warning about 'proof abundance,' and the Leiden Declaration's pushback, then lands his own read on what the convergence actually proves.
A solution to 2-copy distillability of Werner states — arXiv
On the two-copy…
The skinny
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