{
  "id": 6738395,
  "title": "I’ll write romance novels if AI solves all maths, Chinese Fields winner jokes",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/11/ill-write-romance-novels-if-ai-solves-all-maths-chinese-fields-winner",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-09-11T10:00:15.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "South China Morning Post",
    "slug": "south-china-morning-post",
    "url": "https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3367197/ill-write-romance-novels-if-ai-solves-all-maths-chinese-fields-winner-jokes"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Deng Yu, the 37-year-old Chinese mathematician who secured the prestigious 2026 Fields Medal, has a backup plan if artificial intelligence renders his career obsolete. On Tuesday, he jestingly announced on social media that \"if AI can solve all maths problems, I'll go home and write my yuri novel\", a genre of Japanese novels and comics that explores intimate friendships and romantic relationships between women. This lighthearted jest came after AI created \"an atmosphere of restlessness and impatience\" within mathematical circles, according to Deng. He further stated that once this wave in the next year or two passes, the situation would gradually become clear, signaling a slow adaptation of mathematics and the emergence of a new ecosystem. However, Deng clarified to the South China Morning Post that he wasn't currently working on a yuri novel. While uncertainty brews in certain parts of the mathematical world about AI's impact on the field, a significant development has occurred recently. On September 8, OpenAI alleged that it utilized one of its models to solve the Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize Problem, one of seven major mathematical questions posed by the Clay Mathematics Institute in 2000, each accompanied by a US$1 million prize. This proof, generated using OpenAI's unreleased next-generation model over 88 hours and consuming 130 billion output tokens, would significantly advance humanity's understanding of mathematical physics, particularly in fluid mechanics. However, some mathematicians remain skeptical. New York University mathematics professor Tristan Buckmaster and Anthropic researcher Levent Alpoge recently claimed to have independently proven the Euler equations, widely regarded as a crucial step towards solving the Navier-Stokes problem. They suggested that OpenAI learned of their progress a week before and then adopted their methodology. OpenAI later clarified that while they had independently proven the Euler equations, they did not deny using de-identified data from other mathematicians to improve their models. The American Mathematical Society acknowledged the mathematicians' breakthroughs assisted by new technologies but stated that OpenAI had completed the final proof. This incident is not the first time AI has overshadowed human mathematicians. Earlier this year, OpenAI researcher Su Weijie, a statistics and data science professor at the University of Pennsylvania, used AI to advance the twin prime conjecture, a significant mathematical problem. In 2013, Zhang Yitang proved that there are infinite pairs of consecutive prime numbers with a gap bounded by a finite number, initially at 70 million, later reduced to 246. Su claimed that within a 12-year period, the gap remained unchanged, and he utilized an internal version of OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra to achieve the final proof.",
  "summary": "Deng Yu, the 37-year-old Chinese mathematician who won the 2026 Fields Medal, has a backup plan if artificial intelligence puts him out of a job. On Tuesday, he wrote on social media that “if AI can solve all maths problems, I’ll go home and write my yuri novel”. Deng is known to be a big fan of yuri, a genre of Japanese novels and comics that depicts intimate friendships and romantic…",
  "key_points": [
    "Deng Yu, 37, Chinese mathematician, won 2026 Fields Medal",
    "AI creates unrest in mathematical circles, he joked about writing yuri novel",
    "OpenAI claims to solve Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize Problem"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Reuters Business via SCMP",
        "title": "I’ll write romance novels if AI solves all maths problems, Chinese Fields winner jokes",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/11/ill-write-romance-novels-if-ai-solves-all-maths-problems-chinese",
        "published": "2026-09-11T10:00:15.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}