Lean's bogus proof: what an independent AI check must verify
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A computer accepted a bogus mathematical proof. What did it actually check?
Augur examines Trail of Bits' Lean exploit and the distinction that makes the story useful: this was a native-computation trust issue, not a failure of Lean's core logical checker. Anthropic reports standard-axiom and statement-comparison safeguards that distinguish its Fermat proof from the exploit. A meaningful second check has to examine the assumptions, not simply repeat the approval.
The episode also covers the unresolved OpenAI Navier-Stokes claim and the company's response to the provenance…
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