A ‘Mathpocalypse’ is freaking out cyber and finance experts. Should you be worried?
Source: Fortune ·
New findings from OpenAI revealed its agents are math geniuses—leading prominent figures to warn public encryption is in danger.
From the source
The world has seen plenty of scary cybersecurity threats in recent years, but nothing quite like what emerged last week. The new threat came in the form of a document drop from OpenAI that The Economist proclaimed to be “judgment day for mathematics” and others simply dubbed “The Mathpocalypse.” This isn’t just idle media chatter. In the view of a prominent cybersecurity expert at Johns Hopkins, “We might lose public key cryptography.” Hoo boy. So what exactly is going on? It’s helpful to know that the OpenAI documents in question don’t describe a scary new way to hack global computers. Instead, they reveal the solution to hundreds of math problems that top mathematicians have struggled for decades to solve. And contrary to some reports, the OpenAI math dump isn’t going to accelerate the arrival of so-called “Q-day” when quantum computing cracks popular encryption algorithms.The real reason the OpenAI documents have sparked an uproar is that they signify the arrival of a new species…