ChatGPT-4o is your kid's new math tutor

Boy do I wish this existed when Ian was in school! The founder of Khan Academy and his son test out OpenAI’s new tutoring tool. Pretty amazing stuff.

➗ The math helper you’ve always wanted: AI is smart enough to teach you if you know how to ask. In Google Search, ask, “How do I solve,” followed by your equation (e.g., “How do I solve 52% of 1,399?”). The answer will walk you through the steps, too. Handy.

🤓 OpenAI cracks world’s hardest math test: Its new model solved 5 out of 6 problems on the International Mathematical Olympiad, earning a gold-level score. That’s huge. It takes sustained creative thinking (paywall link), something AI has struggled with until now. The bot could go public in a few months. PSA: Not all math jokes are bad. Just sum.

One scientist ran the math and decided immortality is basically just a software update away

One scientist ran the math and decided immortality is basically just a software update away. So yeah, your great-great-great-great-great-grandkids could still be waiting on you to Venmo them.

🧮 Windows math shortcut: No need to open the Calculator app. Just press the Windows key, type your equation into the search bar (like 10 15 – 5), and you’ll see the answer instantly (145). FYI: You can include spaces between numbers or leave them out. Either way works.

230

That’s the suspected IQ of Terence Tao, the reigning brainiac of Earth with the highest recorded IQ. The UCLA math prodigy was doing calculus while the rest of us were apparently eating glue in third grade. Now he’s published 300+ papers, 18 books and advises the U.S. president. My math teacher told me my IQ was pretty average. I thought, “That’s just mean.” 

ChatGPT, take the wheel: In a simulated space mission, researchers handed ChatGPT the controls of a spacecraft, and it didn’t crash into a moon. In fact, it placed second (behind math), beating several AI systems trained like actual astronauts. Translation: A chatbot that forgets what you just said five seconds ago can still land a spaceship. Allegedly.

Math problem pyramid scheme: A fake Facebook event disguised as a “genius-level math contest” has been a top post for half a year, somehow racking up 115M+ views. Spoiler: It’s just a viral engagement trap. People are still arguing about its fake equation in the comments a year later. My math teacher called me average. How mean.

3 years straight

How long Utah’s been crowned Best State in America by U.S. News. From Footloose punch line to economic powerhouse, Utah’s glow-up is the stuff of chamber-of-commerce dreams. It’s got a booming tech sector, top-tier math scores and a 6% smoking rate; Utah is basically a straight-A student in a startup hoodie.

300

The number of calls a day businessman and talent agent Ari Emanuel makes. He also wakes up at 4 a.m. to work out, then jumps on a call with his buddy Mark Wahlberg (paywall link). Quick math? If each call is two minutes, that’s 600 minutes, or 10 hours a day on the phone. Either he’s got a clone or a Bluetooth headset glued to his head.

ChatGPT can make fake receipts: Yes, like real store or restaurant receipts. From scratch, the math might be off, but if you ask it to recreate an existing one first and tweak the prices of items, it works. What does OpenAI say? They’re not worried, since every image includes a “C2PA metadata” tag showing it was made by AI. Like that’s hard to remove.

One wrong move: You’re doing some math on your calculator app and one wrong tap ruins it all. Not anymore. Swipe to the right or left to delete the last character. My high school math teacher called me average. How mean.

2060

When the world will end, says Sir Isaac Newton. More than 300 years ago, he used math and biblical dates to predict the apocalypse. He believed in the Battle of Armageddon, where good and evil would clash, ushering in the second coming of Christ.