GPT-5.2 Pro Produced an Original Physics Proof and AI Agents Are Cutting Their Own Costs

OpenAI used GPT-5.2 Pro to derive a new formula for gluon scattering amplitudes, which describe how particles called gluons interact inside protons and neutrons. A scaffolded version, meaning multiple AI systems working together, spent 12 hours producing a formal proof of its validity.

Physicist Andy Strominger reportedly called it the first time he'd seen AI solve a problem in his kind of physics that might not have been solvable by humans.

The same lab believes it has solved at least 6 of 10 research-level math problems in the "First Proof" challenge, whose solutions were kept confidential.

The "AI 2027" authors graded 2025 progress at nearly 65% of the originally predicted pace, meaning full software engineering automation could arrive as soon as late 2027 or early 2028.

A Berkeley researcher told his coding agent to cut its own cost by 99%. It ran overnight watching its own logs, editing its own code, and rerunning until metrics dropped, delivering a 98% cost cut across nine changes no human wrote.

Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw, is joining OpenAI to bring "agents to everyone."

Lobster.cash launched to give AI agents their own Visa cards and stablecoin wallets.

EVA AI opened a pop-up restaurant in Hell's Kitchen where patrons speed-dated AI avatars for Valentine's Day.

Meta was granted a patent for LLMs that keep deceased users' accounts posting and simulating calls after death.

Airbnb says a third of its US and Canadian support is now AI.

Anthropic is partnering with CodePath to put Claude at the center of CS courses for 20,000+ students at community colleges and HBCUs, over 40% from families earning under $50,000.

Claude was reportedly used by the Department of War to capture Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro.

Western Digital's entire HDD capacity for the year is booked. Broadband memory prices have jumped 7x in nine months, pushing memory from 3% to over 20% of router costs.

TSMC plans another $100 billion for four more US fabs.

SpaceX is hiring crystal growth scientists to build silicon wafer fab lines that could support space-based chip manufacturing. Internally, they're scaling "Spok," a Grok variant trained on company data.

The Department of War executed Operation Windlord, the first C-17 airlift of a nuclear reactor. A C-17 is a military cargo aircraft.

Helion's Polaris became the first privately funded machine to achieve D-T fusion at 150 million degrees. D-T fusion, or deuterium-tritium fusion, is the reaction that powers the sun and is considered the most promising path to commercial fusion energy.

Companies are staging boxing matches between VR-controlled Chinese humanoids for paying San Francisco crowds.

An internal PLA report reveals plans for autonomous, self-coordinating drone swarms under AI decision-making.

Anduril is raising billions at a $60 billion valuation to fund a weapons factory and an autonomous fighter jet.

Oura rings are replacing wedding bands in Silicon Valley.

Meta plans to add facial recognition to its Ray-Ban smart glasses this year.

New research finds Viagra and Cialis may also treat heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.

Centivax dosed first participants in a Phase 1 universal flu vaccine trial, with a broader pipeline spanning pan-herpes, oncology, malaria, and universal antivenom treatments.

Stanford analysis shows US productivity grew 2.7% in 2025, nearly doubling the prior decade's average.

India cleared a $1.1 billion state-backed VC program for deep tech. ChatGPT now has 100 million weekly users there.

The EU is moving to ban infinite scrolling in apps like TikTok.

A Pennsylvania judge dismissed a suit brought by the Nonhuman Rights Project arguing elephants confined in the Pittsburgh Zoo share a right to bodily liberty.

In Manhattan, Astoria, the borough's only wild turkey, roams freely under the care of three self-appointed human guardians.

Former President Obama disclosed that aliens "are real" but he hasn't seen them personally, that his first presidential question was "where are the aliens," and that they're not in an underground facility "unless there's this enormous conspiracy."

NASA is creeping closer to declaring ancient Martian life, with new research finding non-biological processes don't fully explain organics in Gale Crater.