OpenAI's math results leave open whether AI can break the public-key algorithms behind banking

Fortune says the OpenAI documents reveal the solution to hundreds of math problems that top mathematicians have struggled for decades to solve.

Fortune says the OpenAI documents do not describe a new way to hack global computers and will not accelerate Q-day, when quantum computing cracks popular encryption algorithms.

Citing the possibility that ECDSA could soon be cracked, one Bitcoin researcher suggested crypto holders 'calmly begin planning for bunker mode' by moving their funds to secret new addresses.

Asked whether the lack of cryptography questions in the results means the models are really bad at cryptography, Dan Boneh said: 'We don't know.'

Dan Boneh, a Stanford professor who heads the applied cryptography group, said of the recently published results: 'there are no questions here on cryptography'.

Eddy Lazzarin, general partner at a16z crypto, said: 'We didn't learn that elliptic curves are vulnerable in a way that they weren't before.'

Justin Thaler, a research partner at a16z crypto, said researchers generally believe there is no efficient algorithm for these problems, and that 'if there is not one, it doesn't matter how smart the AI is. It cannot find the nonexistent algorithm.'

Boneh said cryptography must assume certain problems are hard because proving it is tied to the P versus NP problem, and that 'None of the problems that were posted this week come even close to resolving the P versus NP problem.'

Boneh said that in the past, when someone made an assumption and built a system on it, 'we'd have to wait like 10 years' before the system could be deployed.

Boneh said that now 'we can just let a model run for a month, try to break it, and if the model can't break it, boy, do we have a lot of confidence that the assumption is valid.'

Eddy Lazzarin said: 'So we have already actually engaged in and prepared and deployed many of the mitigations you'd need for those exact concerns for a different threat.'

The a16z write-up says the overlap between quantum-driven migration of some systems and AI risk has limits.

The five people listed on the a16z episode, Boneh (special research advisor), Lazzarin (general partner), Thaler (research partner), Liz Harkavy (investment partner) and Sonal Chokshi (editor in chief), each hold a role at a16z crypto.

Other crypto experts have replied that moving funds to new addresses is too drastic for now.

A 10-year wait is about 120 months, so a month-long model run is roughly 120 times shorter than the wait Boneh described.

Qureshi's 95% chance that everything is fine leaves a 5% remainder for every other outcome.

Fortune says the documents signify the arrival of 'a new species of mathematical super-genius' that 'may be capable of finding flaws' in the algorithms used to encrypt banking passwords, email accounts and the rest of digital life; those algorithms have long been regarded as sound by top cryptographers.

Fortune quotes a prominent cybersecurity expert at Johns Hopkins as holding: 'We might lose public key cryptography.'

Fortune says news of the 'Mathpocalypse' created barely a ripple in the market.

As TBPN noted, an attacker holding a working break would be foolish to carry out a massive heist that would destroy the value of the crypto; the better play is a series of smaller, subtler thefts, so a flaw may not be discovered right away.